|
Tinker v. Des Moines sucks as a citation here (and trust me, Kevin and MC know all about that particular case, I'm sure) - I'll let them explain fully, but needless to say, when they mention "disruption" to the school day, there's a reason. Also I doubt Tinker applies directly to calling your teacher a fucking asshole - that's not exactly speech the school does not wish to deal with in the same way political expressions of dissent are.
With that said, since the school gets to (within reason) determine what is "disruptive" the rule still kind of sucks, but I don't see much of a way around it, and I doubt the Courts do, either.
The points about how the kid is learning an important lesson about the "real world" are pretty moot in my opinion - while he may be, the school's stated goals should be much loftier than "teach those kids a lesson about speaking out" and I'm not sure the way this was handled has really conveyed that lesson either way. Additionally, the legal standards for an employer and a public school are clearly different, although likely neither matter that much in this case.
Would the school have asked the kid to take down a positive fan page? They probably should, since it has similar disruptive potential - but I doubt it would cause such a stir. I feel like schools are caught with their pants down, with no plan to deal with this sort of phenomena and no real desire to embrace the technology, and instead, this kind of reactionary silliness becomes litigation instead of something useful.
|
Hybrid Mode
