Courts Uphold 1st Amendment Rights of CyberBullies
Its good to see the courts pushing back against crybabies that can’t take some good-natured ribbing.
From Boston.Com here:
One morning in May 2008, an eighth-grader walked into Janice Hart’s office at a Beverly Hills middle school crying. She was upset and humiliated, and couldn’t possibly go to class, the girl told the counselor. The night before, a classmate had posted a video on YouTube with a group of other eighth graders bad-mouthing her, calling her “spoiled,’’ a “brat,’’ and a “slut.’’ Text and instant messages had been flying since. Half the class must have seen it by now, the girl told Hart.
Hart took the problem to the school’s vice principal and principal, who took it to a district administrator, who asked the district’s lawyers what they could do about it. In the end, citing “cyber-bullying’’ concerns, school officials suspended the girl who posted the video for two days. That student took the case to federal court, saying her free speech rights were violated.
Last month, a US District judge in LA sided with the student, saying the school went too far. Amid rising concerns over cyber-bullying, and even calls for criminalization, some courts, parents, and free speech advocates are pushing back – students, they say, have a First Amendment right to be nasty in cyberspace.
“To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul [of the law],’’ judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote in a 60-page opinion.
The US Supreme Court has yet to take up a case involving student speech online; the governing decision is from the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines School District case, which held that student speech could not be limited unless it causes substantial disruption on campus.
So if you don’t want videos of you on YouTube calling you a spoiled brat and a slut, stopping acting like a spoiled brat and a slut. Man up Sally!
1. A person’s rights ends where another’s begins.
2. Where is your evidence that she is and acts like a slut?
3. Where is your evidence that she is and acts like a spoiled brat?
Cubed emo,
1. That’s not what the constitution says. Maybe that’s what the constitution says in the lost island of Aspergia or whatever fantasy land you inhabit.
2 and 3- Several people recognized this fact and documented it in a video. They exercised their judgment and their first amendment rights.
The way you like to reframe questions by asking to prove definitions of words makes you sound retarded. If I say I saw a skunk, you would ask where my evidence is that mammals are black and white and smell bad.
By the way, you’re right. I am a retard. I am an idiot and an imbecile. I’m aware of this fact. This is why I’m seeking your wise wisdom from you Mr. Belcher. This is why I ask these questions.
Then the American constitution fails to properly protect civil rights, and encourages suicide.
You’re an idiot, Belcher. You clearly oppose civil rights for those who are unable to defend themselves. Congratulations.
Had this case been before an Australia court the result would have been different. We believe in true justice for all here – or rather we’re better at it than the Yanks!!
Without evidence that she did anything slutty isn’t this technically libel? Beyond that using Tinker is dumb, there is a huge difference between calling someone a slut and wearing something to protest a war. But how about a student calls someone with say… Fragile X Syndrome, a retard a couple times a day, every day, for a month (and yes that does happen, I used to know students at my school who would insult a kid with pretty severe autism every single day at lunch). That wouldn’t really disrupt school, but it could make that one student really depressed. I have to agree with the first poster, the rights of your fist end at my face. Just try to tell the parents of Ryan Patrick Halligan (who committed suicide for a very similiar reason though I believe in his case it was because of rumors he was gay) that cyber bullying is no big deal.
Not really libel, Bryan. Libel must be something more specific- such as saying you witnessed someone raping a puppy. Calling someone a douche, however, or a slut is so general as to be an obscure reference to an opinion of someone’s character. And yes, way different than picking on someone with mental retardation.
The best guide I’ve found on libel is at EFF here.
This court decision protects calling someone a retard so long as you do it online, or at school but it does not create a disruption to the class. Pretty much any language short of threatening someone, or committing slander/libel is now allowed. I mean how would that create a disruption to the class anymore then this would. You do it at lunch, a couple people laughes, the person being called a retard tries to do something but doesn’t know what to do… sounds pretty bad to me, but is totally allowed according to this new Supreme Court decision.
Beyond that wearing a armband to protest a war is a lot different then calling someone a slut, but the Supreme Court just ruled them to be the same form of protected speech. Face it this opens the flood gates for hostile actions at school, so long as no disruption is created. In other words the only way you are going to be protected is to do harm to yourself or others or create the disruption in some way yourself.
P.S. You Still need to tell Ryan Patrick Halligan’s parents that this is no big deal.
Or, you can realize that high school is just 4 miserable years of a long life, endure it and get out and do something great and fun with your life. Like most normal people do.
Suicide is sad, but it weeds out the weak. Darwin said so, go bitch at him, not me.
I am not a social Darwinist. If I was I would have you steralized :). It seems weird to me that someone who claims to support kids with Fragile X would be. You do realize that most of them get bullied on a regular basis and many probably commit suicide because of it. Beyond that, would you work at a job where you were called a fag, retard, homo, etc. on more then a daily basis for 4 years? Probably not, you would probably quit after like… a month, two?
It has not been my experience that mentally and physically retarded kids in high school get bullied and picked on. In fact, I’ve seen the exact opposite where such kids are shown a lot of kindness by fellow students. And no argument from me that school sucks. I have a whole category to homeschooling because of school abuse. But you do what you have to to get past school and into a good life for yourself. Same for working a lousy job- if you need the money you stick it out, or get a better job when you can.
I was listening to an old episode of LoveLine with Dr. Drew today and he said that Depression was a disease that has a 20% death rate! Between suicide and out of control addiction, most of those deaths occur. And the mental health treatment for depression is still being perfected. Where some see bullying as the culprit behind suicide, I see it as someone who suffered from an untreated mental illness. Those with stronger mental health are able to cope with teasing and doesn’t allow it to make their depression a terminal condition.
It depends on how high functioning they are and who their classmates are. A HFA kid is going to be treated more like crap then a LFA autistic kid, especcially as they will be in a lot of remedial classes with the worst type of classmates. In some ways I think abuse at high school is one of the worst kinds of abuse, the only kind that would really be worse is a kid being abused at home. I mean you have no choice but to go back again and again and again, even spousal abuse isn’t that bad. When being abused at home and school are combined, can you really blame a kid for wanting to blow his head off. 18 straight years without any escape… scary.
I agree that you have to get past it, but if you can save lifes by stopping bullying wouldn’t you? Seriously, it only makes sense to try and stop it. Especcially when verbal bullying generally means theres some kind of other bullying going on.
Now as for depression being the culprit behind suicide, bullying can be the root cause behind depression. To quote Spanglish (yes I just quoted Spanglish :-p), “Your low self-esteem is just common sense” (or something like that). Same thing with being depressed. If your being bullied and mocked all the time at school and have few friends because of it, chances are your not going to be too happy. If you have been teased constantly for years, your going to be pretty close to the abyss.
And moving even farther on, read up on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, if your being bullied constantly your not going to learn that much because you have worse things to worry about (learning is on the very top of the hierarchy). So if you believe that you go to school to learn, the school has a substational interest to stop bullying where it sits.
P.S. In case you were wondering, bullying effects 2-4th (out of 5) most important needs. The only big one it doesn’t effect is your basic needs (food, shelter, etc.).
P.S. http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/6535110/mum-encouraged-daughter-to-assault-girl thats why I anything supporting bullying scares me. Thats were a lot of bullying inevitably leads (trust me… I am like an expert). I have never had that big of an assult… but I have seen adults encourage my bullies, and I have had dislocated fingers and a broken nose (at different times). It still hurts from time to time for me to play my cello because of the vibrations. Anything supporting spoken bulling scares the hell out of me.
LOL, Bryan you got bullied because you played cello! Have you seen this?
http://www.belch.com/blog/2008/03/14/4-pm-music-cello-rock/
LOL, way to totally misread what I said. Me getting bullied caused me not to be able to play the cello the way I would like from time to time. Extended 1st position (or any extended position) with a pinky finger that never healed right, hurts like hell. I can generally take it for about 10 minutes, but after that it starts to hurt too much and I either have to come up with some crazy shifting patterns or quit. All because some asshole thought it would be funny to grab my hand as I was begging for mercy and hurt my hand as much as he could. I actually quite enjoy some cello rock stuff.