Before Thanksgiving I posted a "Holidazed and Confused" blog entry about weird holiday moments. Before December's break, I would like to focus on the good in the world. Your assignment will be to find an article from the last three years that is uplifting, inspiring, or just plain good news. You also can express any holiday wishes to the class or the world. You can post a favorite poem that is inspirational. You can write a thank you to your classmates or somebody important in your life. You can post links to any video that fits the topic. Humorous videos are also encouraged, but they must not have a negative vibe such as a prank or be inappropriate. Everybody needs to make one contribution to the blog that brings "joy" to the class.
Should students be able to create facebook pages that criticize and/or mock their teachers? Here are two interesting articles about students who were disciplined by their schools for content on facebook. The first article is from the Miami Herald and the second article is from the Chicago Sun-Times. Read and respond.
Judge: Student's Facebook rants about teacher are protected speech A teenager's venting about her teacher on a social networking site falls under the umbrella of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled. BY HANNAH SAMPSON Miami Herald A student who set up a Facebook page to complain about her teacher -- and was later suspended -- had every right to do so under the First Amendment, a federal magistrate has ruled. The ruling not only allows Katherine "Katie'' Evans' suit against the principal to move forward, it could set a precedent in cases involving speech and social networking on the Internet, experts say. The courts are in the early stages of exploring the limits of free speech within social networking, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the Florida ACLU, which filed the suit on Evans' behalf. "It's one of the main things that we wanted to establish in this case, that the First Amendment has a life in the social networking technology as it applies to the Internet and other forms of communication,'' Simon said. In 2007, Evans, then a senior at Pembroke Pines Charter High School, created a Facebook page where she vented about "the worst teacher I've ever met.'' But instead of other students expressing their dislike of the teacher, most defended the teacher and attacked Evans. A couple days later, Evans took the page down. But after Principal Peter Bayer found out about it, he bumped Evan from her Advanced Placement classes, putting her in classes with less prestige, and suspended her for three days. In late 2008, Evans filed suit against the principal, asking that the suspension be ruled unconstitutional and reversed, that the documents be removed from her file at the school and that she receive reimbursement for attorney fees. Evans, an honors student, was concerned that the suspension would tarnish her academic record and hurt her chances in graduate school and her career. Bayer tried to get the case dismissed and asked for immunity against paying damages. PRINCIPAL DENIED In a ruling on Friday, Magistrate Judge Barry Garber declined Bayer's request to toss the case and said the principal could be forced to pay up if Evans, now 19 and a journalism student at the University of Florida, is victorious. "Evans' speech falls under the wide umbrella of protected speech,'' Garber wrote. "It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus, did not cause any disruption on-campus, and was not lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior.'' The judge also noted that the principal suspended Evans two months after she had taken the page down. "In short, the potential spark of disruption had sputtered out, and all that remained was the opportunity to punish,'' Garber wrote. The judge dismissed the student's request to force Bayer to purge the records of her suspension, but gave her the opportunity to amend her complaint and make the demand of the right parties. Bayer could not be reached for comment Monday. Pembroke Pines City Manager Charlie Dodge, who oversees the city's charter school system, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Matthew D. Bavaro, who filed the suit with the American Civil Liberties Union on Evans' behalf, said the case helps clarify when schools can punish students for speech that doesn't take place at school. "These days, things are done on the Internet. Socialization is done on the Internet,'' he said. "So the law needs to adapt and we need precedent on how courts are going to apply First Amendment principles for off-campus speech.'' He said he believes the ruling "seems like a pretty strong signal'' of where the case will go. IMPORTANT CASE While the suit is far from resolved, legal experts say it is an important case. "I think there has been too great a tendency in recent years for public school officials to sort of reach beyond the classroom, reach beyond the school campus very often to try to regulate or punish free speech by students in the name of protecting order,'' said Sam Terilli, a media law and ethics professor at the University of Miami. "While we can all understand that, post-Columbine, there are limits.'' But Terilli added: "If a student is using or any other medium to threaten or even imply threats of violence, that's a different matter.'' Student gets 5-day suspension for Facebook slam at teacher OAK FOREST | Mom says he did it at home, considers lawsuit February 22, 2010 BY MICHAEL DRAKULICH SouthtownStar An Oak Forest family is mulling legal options after their son was suspended from Oak Forest High School last week for posting critical comments about a teacher on his Facebook page. Justin Bird, a sophomore, received a five-day out-of-school suspension. Justin and his mother, Donna Bird, said the comments were posted on his own time, using his own computer and in his own home. They question whether the school has the authority to go beyond school boundaries to hand down such a punishment and are considering filing a lawsuit. Bird said her son and the teacher had been clashing since the beginning of the school year. On Feb. 9, Justin created a Facebook fan page for "anyone who has had a bad experience or plain dislikes" the teacher. The page also referred to the teacher in a derogatory way. Justin said the page was up on Facebook for five days and attracted about 50 fans. But he said nobody posted comments about the teacher on the page. Fearing a reprimand from school officials, he took it down Feb. 14. The following day, he was called in to Dean Lillie Holman's office and notified of his suspension. "He [Justin] is a high honors student, and I don't want this affecting his record," Bird said. Phone and e-mail messages to the teacher seeking comment were not returned. Bremen Community High School District 228 Supt. Bill Kendall declined to identify the student punished over the matter but revealed he was a male sophomore. Kendall said if the student completes a program that deals with anger management and making better choices, he can have three of the five suspension days removed from his disciplinary record. Kendall admitted the district is wading into unfamiliar territory with such a disciplinary case. The family argues there is no place in the student handbook that deals with such occurrences. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Katherine Evans could sue her former high school principal to have a suspension expunged from her record. She was suspended in 2007 from the Pembroke Pines Charter High School in Florida after she created a Facebook page to criticize one of her teachers. Kendall said it is possible the district would remove the suspension from the student's record if administrators find there are substantial similarities to that court case. But he said an initial comparison of the cases indicates they are not similar. American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Ed Yohnka said the organization has seen a growing trend of school officials trying to extend the scope of their authority into students' homes. Often, officials base such punishment on the vague principle of "causing a disruption to school activities," he said. "Absent of some kind of threat, it's not clear what authority a school district has to punish a student using his own resources, in his own home and on his own time," he said. |
AuthorHigh interest reading selections and a focus on non-fiction are integral parts of The Witz Way. Archives
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