Censorship: 2 students suspended for posting on their home website

[C'DaleRider]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: preslove

The question is who determined it WAS in FACT threats? If it was Law Enforcement fine, but in this case it appears School Officials made the determination it was a threats.

It could've been "Jim D is a Lollypop lover". Would Law Enforcement determine that to be a threat?

or was it "Jim D is going to kick the sh1t out of Tony A at 3:15". That could be a threat determined by Law enforcement.

The key point, does the School have the power or right to act in a Law Enforcement Capacity?
Have they been deputized?
Are they Judge, Jury and Executioner all in one?

The school was just trying stop this problem from festering. Suspending a child from school for a week is a much less drastic course of action than calling law enforcement. Contacting the police seems like it would have been going overboard, this seems like a moderate solution that will show these students that threatening violence is not acceptable behavior. And yes, this is the school's responsibility, since the offending students AND the threatened students go to the same school. Steps like these should be taken in order to avoid the kind of violence that public school haters on this forum so decry.

Fine, but then there should be in writing, a Constitutional ammendment that students have no rights and not covered under the 1st ammendment.

Rights, we don't need no stinking rights.

It's been proven over and over again school children to age 18 do NOT have the same rights as adults. Even at age 18, many "rights" given adults aren't theirs yet....drinking comes to mind. But back to kids and rights.......the rights of children are not the same as adults. School newspapers are constantly censored and that has been upheld in court time after time. Schools many times require strict dress codes.........the kids have no legal say in the matter and couldn't even if they wanted.

This seems like a case of some kids threatening other kids at achool, despite it being done on a web stie posted from home. It seemed to advocate doing harm at school which is why I believe the administration got involved..........and they got involved after parents complained to the board about these kids. "The two eighth graders were suspended from Trickum Middle School on Friday after hearing complaints from parents and students. "

I guess the police could have been brought in on the matter, but then there's the pesky problem of records being generated, juvenile authorities being involved and the kids brought into the "system". Maybe it was better that the board attempted to correct the problem with non-legal remedies.....instead of calling out the cops and having arrests made, etc.


And did you know installing software on a computer you don't own without the permission of the computer's owner is a felony...in all 50 states?

 

[C'DaleRider]

Originally posted by: dahunan


Tell us what constitutional rights the school violated?

He can't.

 

[dmcowen674]

OK, so consensus is Students have no Consitutional rights, not protected under 1st Ammendment and Schools have Law Enforcement powers.

This should be clearly posted for students and Parents.

 

[MrYogi]

1st amendment?
I would have kicked them out of the school forevah

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: MrYogi
1st amendment?
I would have kicked them out of the school forevah

By law they have to go to school, so where would they go to school???

 

[rjain]

dmcowen: are you still blathering about crap you don't understand?

Where does it say in the Constitution that everyone has the right to be in a school while threatening other members of that school? Why should students be deprived of the right to go to school without being around someone who threatened to attack them? Since when did a school not have the capability to suspend its own students for the environment they create at the school?

Edit: Let's put it another way. If one of your coworkers posted on their private website that they are going to kill you, how safe would you feel at work? Why should you be the one forced to quit instead of the one who threatened you?

 

[rjain]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: MrYogi
1st amendment?
I would have kicked them out of the school forevah

By law they have to go to school, so where would they go to school???

Where would the threatened students go to school???

 

[MrYogi]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: MrYogi
1st amendment?
I would have kicked them out of the school forevah

By law they have to go to school, so where would they go to school???

They do not deserved to be schooled. Free speech does not mean you can say everything/anything.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: rjain
dmcowen: are you still blathering about crap you don't understand?

Where does it say in the Constitution that everyone has the right to be in a school while threatening other members of that school? Why should students be deprived of the right to go to school without being around someone who threatened to attack them? Since when did a school not have the capability to suspend its own students for the environment they create at the school?

Edit: Let's put it another way. If one of your coworkers posted on their private website that they are going to kill you, how safe would you feel at work? Why should you be the one forced to quit instead of the one who threatened you?

I didn't see the "alleged" Threatening and neither did you.

My posts were aimed at the Censoring of Non-Threatening info on their Off-Campus Website.

 

[rjain]

How was that info censored?

Edit: why exactly do YOU have to see the action of threatening for punitive action to be legitimate? If the threat was verbal and done in front of the prinicipal, we'd be in the same situation. Neither of us saw the "alleged" threat.

 

[MadRat]

The school will lose in a lawsuit if it ever gets to court. Until the student is punished by law the school has no jurisdiction or jurisprudence to interfere in the private lives of the students. If they can show that the students promoted the website while on school grounds or accessed the content of the offensive site then they have legal precedence.

The cold hard fact is that unless a student has broken the law then the school must keep out of the student's private affairs, no matter how sad or asinine they might be...

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: MrYogi

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: MrYogi
1st amendment?
I would have kicked them out of the school forevah

By law they have to go to school, so where would they go to school???

They do not deserved to be schooled. Free speech does not mean you can say everything/anything.

Actually the First Amendment pretty much says you can. Its liberal Far Right goofballs that differ in opinion. Since the goofballs run the Attorney General's office you'd better keep that in mind before rattling off your Constitutionally backed right. Ashcroft is the devil.

 

[ElFenix]

there is no due process in schools.

and free speech does not apply to threats of imminent violence

 

[Jmman]

Well, it looks like they posted threats on their website. Free speech has limits. If I went to the Capitol and was screaming that I was going to kill the president, would I be arrested? You bet. If you were in the schools position you would do exactly the same thing that they did. What if they did nothing and one of these kids killed somebody? The crap would hit the fan....

 

[Spencer278]

"The site was anti-African American and included racial and ethnic slurs, as well as threatening language,"

The threatening language is clearly the secondary reason why they suspened the students but it is hard to know if they should have been suspended with out know the text of the webpage. Also the school may have gotten a lot of hits to the page from the schools computers.

 

[preslove]

Originally posted by: MadRat
The school will lose in a lawsuit if it ever gets to court. Until the student is punished by law the school has no jurisdiction or jurisprudence to interfere in the private lives of the students. If they can show that the students promoted the website while on school grounds or accessed the content of the offensive site then they have legal precedence.

The cold hard fact is that unless a student has broken the law then the school must keep out of the student's private affairs, no matter how sad or asinine they might be...

You are wrong. The school does have the right to interfere with the private lives of students if those private lives interfere with the environment at school. This is why drug testing at schools is legal. Also, you don't have to break the law to get suspended.

 

[rjain]

Actually, they didn't interfere with the students' private lives. They interfered with their school lives based on something that they did in their private lives which is directly relevant to their school lives.