吃瓜直播

One of the technology-related civil liberties battles that 吃瓜直播 affiliates around the country have been fighting in recent years involves defending students鈥� rights to privacy and free expression in the new electronic media that are becoming such a large part of their lives. For some reason many school officials seem to believe that when it comes to online communications, students have no such rights

We have a case underway in Minnesota, for example, that exemplifies these problems. I got on the phone with Teresa Nelson, Legal Counsel at the 吃瓜直播 of Minnesota, and she told me about it:

Our client, 鈥淩.S.,鈥� is a typical 12-year-old middle school student. One day she posted on Facebook that she hated one particular hall monitor because 鈥渟he was mean to me.鈥� She made this post from home, on her own Facebook account, outside of school hours. Somehow her principal obtained a screen shot of this posting, and called R.S. into his office to talk to her about it. The school actually claimed that the 12-year-old girl had engaged in 鈥渂ullying鈥� of the adult hall monitor. R.S. received a disciplinary notice for being 鈥渞ude/discourteous.鈥�

Afterwards R.S. put up a Facebook post that said, 鈥淚 want to know who the f%$# told on me.鈥� That prompted a much swifter reaction. This time she was subject to a day of in-school suspension for 鈥渋nsubordination鈥� and 鈥渄angerous, harmful, and nuisance substances and articles.鈥� She was also barred from participating in her class ski trip.

Fast forward about a month. The parent of a middle school boy contacted the school and said R.S. had been chatting on Facebook with her son about sex. The boy later admitted to starting the conversation. But school officials called her in again to ask her about this private, off-campus conversation. Later in the day they pulled her out of class a second time, and this time brought her before a sheriff鈥檚 deputy, who was in uniform and wearing a Taser. They grilled her about the Facebook conversation, and then demanded that R.S. give them her Facebook and email passwords. R.S. felt highly intimidated by the police officer and two other adults, who pressured her and threatened her with detention.

The school officials then searched her private Facebook profile page, including private communications and things such as quizzes she鈥檇 taken. She sat there as they read through her private accounts, and they berated her over things they saw鈥攃hastised her for having taken boyfriend quizzes and sex quizzes, for example. She was humiliated. At the time, Facebook didn鈥檛 archive chat conversations, so the search didn鈥檛 actually reveal anything about the communications that had set off this search.

After they did the search, they notified her mom. R.S. was frightened and humiliated and didn鈥檛 want to go to school for several days afterwards. Ultimately there was no discipline against R.S. that came out of this. They weren鈥檛 even looking for violations of school rules鈥攂ut they certainly didn鈥檛 find any.

The 吃瓜直播 of Minnesota filed a complaint alleging violations of R.S.鈥檚 First and Fourth Amendment rights and seeking damages, a declaratory judgment, and injunctive relief to prevent the school from engaging in such conduct in the future. In July, the Minnewaska Area School District moved to have the case dismissed, but District Court Judge Michael J. Davis rejected the motion in August, holding that 鈥渢he general rule that schools may not regulate merely inappropriate out-of-school speech鈥� has been 鈥渨ell-established for decades.鈥� There is, as he wrote,

a narrow exception to the general rule鈥攁n exception which applies to true threats or egregious statements likely to make their way to school and cause a substantial disruption to the school environment. Courts have applied such an exception sparingly, applying it only to the most violent and threatening forms of speech and consistently declining to expand it to extremely offensive but nonviolent out-of-school speech.

Currently, Nelson says, they鈥檙e just beginning the discovery process in the case. However, she is also hopeful that they can reach a settlement with the school district. 鈥淥ur hope with settlement is that we can get a model for other schools in the state. If this school will make some policy changes to prevent this from happening again, we鈥檙e hopeful other schools will follow suit.鈥�

On-campus punishment for off-campus speech is a trend that 吃瓜直播 affiliates around the country are unfortunately seeing. However, as Nelson points out, this case is unusual.

When you look at cases around the country, where schools have punished students for off-campus speech, the legal battles are over whether that speech was likely to cause a disruption in school. Most of those cases involve web sites that engage in much more extreme satire. In this case, if R.S. had made her comment in the hallway at school instead of on Facebook, it probably wouldn鈥檛 have even been punished.

Nelson points out that for some reason, some administrators treat speech differently when it happens online.

If the principal had been standing in line at McDonald鈥檚 and heard a student saying something off-color, he wouldn鈥檛 punish that in school. But because it happens online, schools think they can punish kids for it. And you wouldn鈥檛 have school administrators lurking around McDonald鈥檚 just to see what kids are saying鈥攂ut you do have administrators lurking online. Somehow because it鈥檚 online, principals think it鈥檚 appropriate to troll for material. Though, that鈥檚 not happening so much anymore now that people have started to understand privacy settings on Facebook.

That last comment highlights an important part of what we鈥檙e seeing as society learns to assimilate new technologies such as social networks. Gradually, driven by the ever-present need for privacy, students and others will get savvier about controlling their privacy. At the same time, students and organizations like the 吃瓜直播 will continue fighting to ensure that existing offline rights are not eroded when it comes to their online equivalents. All too often schools, government agencies, companies and others think that new technologies provide a license for intrusive behavior that would never be tolerated in offline analogs.

The ultimate goal in our battle is to allow everyone to use technology to the fullest, secure in the knowledge that their rights are understood and respected by all.