<p>This story has been part of our dinnertime conversation over the last week. I’m surprised it’s not gotten more play in the media. Thoughts?</p>
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<p>[For</a> students, a right to be mean online?](<a href=“http://mobile.latimes.com/inf/infomo?view=page7&feed:a=latimes_1min&feed:c=localnews&feed:i=51050620&nopaging=1]For”>http://mobile.latimes.com/inf/infomo?view=page7&feed:a=latimes_1min&feed:c=localnews&feed:i=51050620&nopaging=1)</p>
<p>I think I have the right to beat the hell out of any kid who does that to my kid. And the kid’s parents, too, since I’m sure they’re real gems.</p>
<p>And the federal judge got it wrong. Free speech does not extend to libel/slander. If this goes to a higher court, I believe the young snot-nose will lose.</p>
<p>I think that, like everyone else, students have the right to be mean online. It’s unfortunate that anyone would choose to act so cruelly, but it’s their right. <em>shrug</em></p>
<p>Maybe someone with a sharper legal mind than mine can explain this to me: Why is it that I would be fired from my job for posting a video online calling a coworker a slut, but a kid can’t be suspended from school for two days for doing the same thing?</p>
<p>This seems more like harassment rather than free speech to me. I think it can lead to physical violence and bullying in the school which is simply not okay. I think its a school’s job to protect its students, and I’m glad they didn’t ignore this situation. I don’t agree with the judge’s ruling.</p>
<p>[Cyberbullying:</a> State Legislation](<a href=“Legislative News, Studies and Analysis | National Conference of State Legislatures”>http://www.ncsl.org/Default.aspx?TabId=12903) I came across this while looking stuff up, it appears many states have laws regarding cyber bullying.</p>
<p>I also don’t understand how the parents of the bullying child would take it to court. If I ever had a child who did this (which I hope I wouldn’t) I would make the two days they were suspended Hell, rather than going to court to defend their “free speech rights.”</p>
<p>^^^I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.</p>
<p>mantori, I’d also like to know if this ruling would pre-empt any sort of school behavior code. </p>
<p>SOad, the suspended student’s attorney was her FATHER. :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Rephrase that a bit"the suspended student’s father is an ATTORNEY"and I think we’ve got our explanation. :)</p>
<p>Haha, well that explains a lot. (:</p>
<p>I guess it is now our time to exercise free speech. I think both the kid and the father are ill-mannered jerks.</p>
<p>I suspect the father being a lawyer wanted the head lines a lot more than justice. You know he is going to get a lot more calls from people in similar positions. </p>
<p>No one has the right to be mean, slander or bully in cyber space just as you do not have the right to be that way in public.If you stood in your school hallway or workplace and made those kinds of statements in public you would be charged, suspended and or fired and this is if you were not beaten to a pulp first.
And we wonder were school violence comes from.???</p>
<p>I actually think that the family has badly miscalculated. The father’s name is public. The story is going to spread. Some bloggers, somewhere, are going to uncover and publish the name of the girl who brought the lawsuit. Her name is going to be tied to a lot of uncomplementary blog postings.</p>
<p>The girl is now in 10th grade, and her father/attorney says that she just wants to leave all of this behind. By the time she gets to college application season, she’s going to wish that she just took the suspension. </p>
<p>I’m also wondering what the family is going to do when the first nasty blog posts start up. After all, it won’t be defamation to say anything about the video posting girl–it’s just people’s right of free speech to insult and defame her, right?</p>
<p>I do wonder if there was any parental discipline handed out.</p>
<p>Whether kids have the right to be mean isn’t the point here. The difficulty is that this area of the law is not clear. The decisions, thus far, have been varied and until the Supreme Court hears a case, I think that the lower courts are going to continue handing down rulings similar to this one. This was a 60 page decision, from which a few snippets have been pulled for the article.</p>
<p>I swear, there are a few times when I think the kids are FEEDING this behavior. Does anyone agree the WORLD (or is it just the U.S.?) is just getting MEANER overall? Busy, angry, entitled, evil, uncaring, nasty. </p>
<p>On Facebook, for example…kids are allowed to have a “Truth Wall” if they want one. I don’t know much about it but, basically you’re “allowing” (asking?) kids to say ANYTHING they want about you. MEan or not. What the heck? WHO would do that? You’re inviting kids to be brutal? And they ARE!!! It’s so offensive. I’ve got my poor child afraid to open her mouth for fear that I’ll call her out for being rude (“But Mom, how was that rude?, you should HEAR what other kids say?”). And the “mean kids” are SO hurtful! I just wonder how it got this bad. I don’t THINK I’m just “getting old”. </p>
<p>I think it’s the fact that “communication” just isn’t what it once was. We’re so removed now. You don’t have to KEEP dealing with your mean local grocer in your small town. Now, there are 5 groceries within 5 minutes so you go down the street instead of learning to handle people. You don’t have to ASK your Mom if you can go to the movies, you text the question. Then you can make faces if she says No. E-mail, forums like this, etc…are all devoid of emotion…no matter HOW hard we try to put feeling into our words. Sometimes an innocent comment just “reads” as mean. </p>
<p>Ahhh…for the good old days. Sip lemonade on the front porch and talk about Aunt Bea or something. To LOOK at a person when they speak. Touch if necessary. THAT is what we’re lacking as our world shrinks and our ire rises.</p>
<p>The question for me in this case is how far the jurisdiction and power of the school extend. If the bully said horrible things to the other student while on school grounds, school has jurisdiction and can level punishment (barring effect of free speech issues, if any). But if the saying of horrible things happened off campus, should the school have the ability to level punishment? </p>
<p>Who should be enforcing cyber-bullying issues?</p>
<p>Drugs or alcohol infractions seem to be easy–the infractions that occur on school campuses or at school or group/club functions are ones that the schools punish directly. But infractions that don’t have a school nexus? The schools seem to leave that to others.</p>
<p>When it comes to hands-on bullying, do the schools only punish if the bullying occurs on campus? If so, that certainly doesn’t protect the poor kid who is jumped after school on the way home from school.</p>
<p>In this case, I think what goes around will come back around. If the poster’s name is public and the bloggers get ahold of it, she will hear much worse than she originally dished out - and she won’t be able to respond because she (her dad) argued the right of free speech to be mean on the web. I think this is the best possible punishment for her, and it serves her and her nasty father right. </p>
<p>I don’t know if there’s a right to be “mean” online, but there are laws against slander and libel and I’d bet they apply to online postings - if the courts don’t see that now, then they will have to recognize it in the future.</p>
<p>If the Federal Judge’s decision is upheld then yes, students do have a right to be mean. This doesn’t mean it’s right, because it isn’t … and our society shouldn’t be encouraging this sort of behavior by enshrining it as “a right.” JMHO of course … but sheesh.</p>