In this blog post, a Florida case in which a student created a Facebook group criticizing a teacher is discussed. The court ruled that the groups was protected by the 1st amendment and the group did not cause disruption on-campus.
This case is relevant not just because most of us use Facebook, but also because it brings up a relatively new question about protected speech on the internet. How much should online speech be protected? Should there be a different standard for students, even if it the speech is not committed on campus? The blog discusses the precedent of Tinker v. Des Moines, but also notes that there has been no Supreme Court precedent for online, off-campus student speech.
It would be interesting to see an online student speech case reach the Supreme Court. On one side, freedom of speech is considered one of the fundamental freedoms that is observed with the strictest level of scrutiny. Students using online methods to post speech off-campus should have the rights to speech given to citizens in the cases we've studied. On the other hand, student speech has been more limited by the possibility of starting a disruption. In a similar case discussed in the blog the opposite outcome was reached. The punishment of a student who created a fake Myspace page for the principal was upheld since the profile caused students to focus on the profile rather than learning thus classifying the student's actions as a disruption to the classroom. How the Supreme Court would balance those conflicting values in an off-campus, online setting, and whether a new test would be created to judge the constitutionality of student speech online would be .
How do you think a Supreme Court case involving online student speech would play out? Should online speech be protected for students?
6 comments:
I do think that free speech still applies to the internet, but I do believe that there is a point when talking bad about someone on the internet is crossing the line. Online harrasment should not be protected, since it causes harm to the person being harressed. It is fine line though, and it will be intresting to see how future cases are decided on this issue.
I think the ruling on the fake Myspace problem was more of a you shouldn't impersonate someone that you aren't issue rather than a disruption of class because if you use the disruption of class argument, you could easily say that students were focusing not on school, but on typing out their hatred for a teacher on Facebook for the other case. Either way though, I think this is an issue of maturity on the part of the students. I mean, is it really necessary to establish a group just to talk smack about a teacher you don't like? If a teacher is so hated that a group can be made about them, it must already be widespread on campus about how terrible the teacher is. It really doesn't change anything in my opinion.
-Yuzo Yanagitsuru
Hmmm, strange. My mom works for a school and she told me about how a student criticized a teacher on Myspace and someone else printed out the page, brought it to the counselor and immediately the student was suspended because it was considered "hate speech". I know that hate speech isnt protected by the 1st amendment, but this comment never caused a distraction in the learning environment, so I feel like it would be more appropriate for someone like the police to get involved.
In my opinion, online speech regarding schools should not be regulated only if it is viewed online at the school grounds and causes a distraction. In this case, I agree with the court ruling in this Florida case, and this sort of standard should be held as the precedent for future cases regarding online speech about schools.
Shall we clear things up a bit? My father is an assistance superintendent, so I've learned a bit about Educational Code from him. In this case, Educational Code has recently been extended: If actions on the internet by a student or teacher at a school about another student or teacher at the school disrupt in school behavior, the administration has the right to punish based upon said online activities.
This is based upon the concept that the administration has the duty of protecting their students from both physical and psychological harm.
Less factual: I am fairly certain that hate speech online has been proven unprotected by courts in a number of cases.
-Ilan Seid-Green
I was talking to some friends at Hillsdale, and apparently there was some cyberbullying that went on there and the kids who did it got in a lot of trouble.
This is a really complicated issue, and I don't know if something like a facebook group should be taken all the way to the supreme court. Also, it would be hard to draw where the line was in terms of what is protected by the first ammendment.
On a side note, a couple months ago I saw something in the news about a woman who got fired after making a facebook status dissing her job and her boss. While this is an option for dealing with this sort of thing in the workplace, it's would be hard to treat school situations this way.
Here is a link to the video, I think it's kinda funny (WARNING: THERE ARE BAD WORDS):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEhcMBbBCz0&feature=related
Honestly, I think these kind of court rulings (ones about online free speech) is rather difficult to rule unless what's said is explicit. For example, sarcasm does not travel well via the net. When the tone of what's said isn't clear, it's even difficult to rule for harassment. There's also the need to take into account how the other party responds to what's said. While I believe that certain circumstances allow for protection of free speech online, other circumstances obviously cross the line but are difficult to fully assess making it a fine line to judge.
-Annie Yang
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