Student Expelled From Indiana High School For Tweeting Profanity 349
First time accepted submitter OopsIDied writes with the story that high-school senior Austin Carroll of Garrett, Indiana was recently expelled after tweeting profanity from his own home, writing "Supposedly the school has a system which tracks students' social networks after they have logged in at school. Although the tweet was done at home at 2 AM, the school decided that such behavior was unacceptable and that the most fitting punishment was expulsion. He did use a school computer, but it was set up to use the school network even when used outside the school because the school claimed the tweet was associated with the school's IP address." As usual, TechDirt has some biting commentary about the expulsion. But Hey, at least they didn't throw him in jail.
Step up that Expulsion (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's their network (Score:2, Informative)
Re:High school student != Expert (Score:5, Informative)
Re:On the fence on this. (Score:4, Informative)
Last I checked profanity was not illegal and generally protected speech.
You surrender a lot of rights when you enter a school. He was only there virtually, but he was using the school's network none the less.
On top of that, yes you have free speech, but there are still consequences. I can't run into a crowded theater and yell "FIRE" and expect to get away scott free.
schools are not the place for indoctrination of any sort
You're kidding, right? The whole point of the American school is to turn you into a boring, uncreative, mindless drone.
If that doesn't qualify as indoctrination, what does? |:
What really happened? (Score:4, Informative)
Now, if as per HuffPost, he did it on his own time using his own equipment; then the school is way out of line.
Contact them if you are outraged (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Contact them if you are outraged (Score:2, Informative)
Original Story (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120325/LOCAL0201/303259931 [journalgazette.net]
It appears the confusion all over the place here derives from the fact that there were two separate incidents. First, last year, he used school equipment to post a profane tweet and was suspended. Then, recently, he posted the above linked profane tweet, but it was from home, on his own computer, not on the school's network at all. They just saw it because they were examining his Twitter account because of the last incident.
Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion.