College pupil's Facebook slur against teacher
I think the kid got off very lightly. Libel is a serious offense. This happened in Australia. School authorities would have come down on him like a ton of bricks if it had been in America
"A Catholic college student who falsely accused a teacher of being a gay paedophile on Facebook has escaped with just a suspension.
Philip Morison, the principal of Emmanuel College, Warrnambool, said that the junior secondary student had posted false sexual innuendo about the teacher on the social networking site. Mr Morison said about 40 other students had joined the group page, but the teacher did not want to know their names. "At first he (the teacher) was obviously upset. But we talked about it, and he understood the student was going after a teacher rather than the person.
"I asked him (the student) why he did it, and he basically thought it was just a bit of fun." Mr Morison said the student had apologised and was back at school. The site had been shut down immediately it was detected. It is believed no further action will be taken.
Source
6 comments:
This story points out that, in spite of what many people feel or believe, there is such a thing as too much freedom. In fact, too much of anything will usually end up having a negative effect. Yes, even money!
But isn't the American Dream - the bigger the better?
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Anonymous said...
"But isn't the American Dream - the bigger the better?"
Usually, but it's a dream that can ultimately become a nightmare as it has for much of our insatiably greedy society.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
A corollary: Just because something may be legal doesn't make it right. (Think of unjust laws of the past)
While this was a silly thing to do it was a private expression that was only incidentally connected with the school. Why did they suspend him?
Sue him, I could understand. Indeed IIRC until fairly recently some types of defamation could attract criminal penalties...
But why suspend him for activities done outside school. If two students had a punch-up on the weekend, would they get suspended?
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