Court: Facebook gripes are free speech
Excellent verdict:
"A former Florida high school student who was suspended by her principal after she set up a Facebook page to criticize her teacher is protected constitutionally under the First Amendment, a federal magistrate ruled.
U.S. Magistrate Barry Garber’s ruling, in a case viewed as important by Internet watchers, denied the principal’s motion to dismiss the case and allows a lawsuit by the student to move forward. …
Katherine Evans, now 19 and attending college, was suspended in 2007 from Pembroke Pines Charter High School after she used her home computer to create a Facebook page titled, ‘Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met.’”
Source
I hope this costs the school a motza. Let's hope the principal can be sued personally.
9 comments:
I had some poor teachers in school. I wish I'd have had a forum where I could have vented my feelings. As long as the statemens she made were true, there is no issue with libel or slander, so criticize away, I say.
Even if libel or slander were involved that is not up to the school to deal with
Not up to the school to deal with? While I understand the logic here I think the school should always deal with things like this. We have a whole bunch of kids nowadays who were never raised properly because their parents were incapable or didn't care and no-one else dared to. I believe "it takes a village" and it's the responsibility of every adult to take action when a child is doing something wrong.
Now whether she was doing something wrong or not is unclear to me. However, I doubt she was just giving honest critique. This based on the understanding I have of teenagers. I wouldn't be surprised if she was just cyber-bullying the teacher abd if that's the case it was the correct decision to suspend her.
Now that I read the source I have to disagree with myself. Apparently "It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus ... was not lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior.". Therefore the suspension was without merit.
Re: the above, a person willing to admit they were clearly wrong is worthy of praise.
As i said when this story first appeared, the school had no authority to get involved. If the teacher felt liabled, she should have taken legal action, something she apparently didn't do. This is a victory, not just for the student, but for sanity and rational thinking. It's also a blow to political correctness, something we should be doing a lot more of. PC is "the most" anti-freedom threat we face.
This is a great win for the U.S. Constitution.
Obviously, this doesn't mean that every school kid can or should now go out and start slamming their teachers online, but it does mean that students DO have the rights to freedom of speech.
Just remember that with freedom comes responsibility.
Furthermore, if the teacher was a poor teacher (based on accusations by a student), the school should have had the good sense to investigate the complaints. Believe it or not, but there ARE high school students who want to learn and get the best from their education still around these days. If that's the case with this young lady, she may very well have had legitimate criticism on her teacher. If that's the case, then the school should have done what they could to determine if the complaints were with or without merit.
Anon 7:46, you make a logical point. But, all teachers, be they good or bad, (especially the bad ones) are protected by the teachers unions, whos main function is to protect, not the teachers, but their dues.
I paid my dues. I sing the blues. No one has got a clue.
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