Another Day, Another Thought

We're All In This Together Kiddo

So says Robert DeNiro's Harry Tuttle in that great Gilliam film 'Brazil'. I found these picks from a cool site here.
Now, today's topic: This is kind of odd.

A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week, a local attorney said.

Superintendent John Harper, who cannot comment on student cases, said the district will take action if it believes there is a safety issue. Meanwhile a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union said school districts must be careful not to discipline students on matters that occur outside school. The student's attorney believes Plainfield School District is overstepping its boundaries.

"The district is going to take away the student's education for exercising his freedom of speech," said attorney Carl Buck. "I feel like they are trying to control his freedom of speech. ... He is saying, 'You can't bully people and we have a right to object and you can't throw people out of school for voicing their opinions.'"

On May 1, the student posted a letter to Plainfield School District on www.xanga.com , telling off the district, using vulgar words and saying he could put whatever he wanted on his site.

On a second post on May 2, without mentioning the school the student wrote: "I feel threatened by you, I cant even have a public Web page with out you bullying me and telling me what has to be removed. Where is this freedom of speech that this government is sworn to uphold? ... Did you ever stop to think this will start a community backlash? The kids at Columbine did what the did because they were bullied. ... In my opinion you are the real threat here. None of us ever put in our xanga's that they were going to kill or bring harm to any one. We voiced our opinions. You are the real threat here. you are depriving us of our right to learn. now stick that in your pipe and smoke it."

Sites like www.myspace.com and www.xanga.com are blocked from most school district computers. These sites are controversial because students often post too much information -- everything from addresses and phone numbers to provocative photos -- making them vulnerable to sexual predators.

"Our beef is it wasn't a threat. It wasn't at school," Buck said. "He doesn't name any individuals. What he is commenting on is their disciplinary action on the Freedom of Speech."

The student's mother said the district suspended her son for 10 days for inappropriate comments and vague threats. She thinks the school is overreacting. "I asked, 'If this is such a serious threat, did you call the FBI?' They said, 'No, we don't have time for this.' I asked, 'Did you call the Joliet police?' and they said, 'no.'"

In most cases, posting strong feelings and opinions on the Internet is not a crime, said Fred Hayes, deputy chief for Joliet Police Department. "Now, they can post it on a Web site. We are not seeing an explosion of new feelings or expressions from students. What you are seeing is the availability of technology to share that with quite a few people," Hayes said.

"It is not a crime to write things on the Internet – though we find them offensive, troubling and disheartening, it is not a crime," Hayes said.

Still, it's a very fine line. "If a student wrote, 'I'm so frustrated I wish the school would blow up' — that would not be a crime," Hayes explained. However, "if a student were to post on a Web site ... at 2 p.m. a bomb will go off in a school -- that would probably cross a line to a crime."

Umm, this is disturbing. A kid gets bullied. He writes his thoughts on aa weblog and the school pull him up and suspend him. I'm not sure that's right. Do you?
Then again, there's this case here which is probably not that great for Freedom of Speech, but they've suspended a kid for his weblog that critiqued junior girls in their school.

The courts have long held - since the Supreme Court's Tinker v. Des Moines decision in 1969 - that public schools can restrict students' First Amendment rights only when what they say materially disrupts school operations.

Officials say that's exactly what happened in Kirkwood. The list Bates and his friends posted left some girls in tears and forced administrators to spend most of a morning handling the situation, said district spokeswoman Nona King.

"These remarks were personal and cruel, and they were made about over 100 junior girls," King said.

Kirkwood officials didn't claim that the boys intended for their list to make its way into school but said its effect justified the suspensions.

But most of the existing case law addresses student speech and behavior that actually occurs on school grounds or at school activities. In the Tinker case, for example, students wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War, despite administrators' instructions forbidding the armbands. The court ruled in favor of the students, finding that their actions weren't disruptive enough to justify infringing on the students' First Amendment rights.

More recently, lower courts have produced a mixed bag of decisions. A federal court in Missouri, for example, ruled in 1998 that the Woodland School District was wrong to discipline a student for offensive comments about his school and faculty that he posted on his Web site. The court found that the comments weren't disruptive enough to meet the Tinker standard.

Two years later, a federal court in Washington state took a different approach. Instead of asking if a student's Web site - created and maintained off-campus - disrupted the school, it concluded that the site fell outside the school's jurisdiction entirely.

Not impressed? I'm not either. Meanwhile they're also trying to muzzle free speech for school kids in Illinois, before it becomes a problem.

An Illinois school district has created a new rule that will punish students for web postings that depict underage drinking, smoking or other "illegal or inappropriate behavior," according to local media reports.

The move caused some parents to complain that the district is invading the privacy of students and overstepping its bounds, The Chicago Tribune reports.

As parents, "we have to watch what they're doing," Mary Greenberg, who has a son at Libertyville High school north of Chicago, said during a public comment period.

"I don't think they need to police what students are doing online. That's my job."

All students who participate in extra curricular activities, about 80 percent of the district's 3,200 students, will now be required to sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of illegal or inappropriate behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action.

Community High School District 128 Associate Superintendent Prentiss Lea said the changes are part of an effort to get parents, teachers and students more aware of the potential pitfalls of such websites as MySpace.com.

"By adding the blog sites (to the student codes of conduct), we wanted to raise discussions on the issue," he said. "We have taken the first steps to starting that conversation."

District officials said they will not regularly surf student sites for violations but said they will follow up on tips from students, a parent or a community member.

In the pledge, which both students and their parents must sign, the students agree that they will not use alcohol, tobacco or drugs or "exhibit gross misconduct or behavior/citizenship that is considered detrimental to his/her team or school."

The code of conduct states that "maintaining or being identified on a blog site which depicts illegal or inappropriate behavior will be considered a violation of this code."

Fight the good fight kids, and post freely. And as the black-and-white man said, Good Luck and Good Night.

Sometimes They Win, Even With Terrence Long Playing!
Sheff came back, (and in the process dislodging Colter Bean instead of Terrence Long) and the Yankees beat the Red Sox today. Terrence Long went 0-for-4 again, maintaining his offensive output at zero.
Jaret Wright got hit by yet another hit ball.
A-Rod hit a 3-run homer which stood as the difference maker.

Tuesday, Rodriguez blasted another monstrous home run, but this one was anything but meaningless. A-Rod's seventh-inning homer turned out to be the difference for the Yankees, who handed the Red Sox a 7-5 loss in front of a capacity crowd at Fenway Park.

"I could care less; in my career, I've been hearing it for a long time," Rodriguez said of the criticism. "It will never stop until you win five or six World Series in a row and hit a Joe Carter home run. I've done a lot of special things in this game, and for none of that to be considered clutch, it's an injustice."

"I don't take anything personally; I enjoy it, it motivates me and I think it's comical," added the reigning American League MVP. "I think anyone that drives in over 130 runs numerous times in his career, it's impossible not to be clutch."

Jaret Wright threw five shutout innings, while Mariano Rivera rescued the Yankees with a five-out save.

So Jaret Wright lowered his ERA yet again. I have to say this is a bit spooky.