Student Free Speech Rights and the Ghosts of Columbine

[Andy Carvin <acarvin@GLOBALSCHOOLHOUSE.COM>]

Hi everyone... I just wanted to let you know about an article of mine that
was published earlier this week. The intro section of the article is
below, followed by a URL for your convenience. (The full text is over 4000
words, a little long for LM_NET standards.)


The Digital Beat

Vol. 2, No. 29 | April 20, 2000

Student Free Speech Rights on the Internet
and the Ghosts of Columbine

By Andy Carvin

---------------------------------------

This week, schools around the country will undoubtedly pause to recount the
tragic, horrifying event that occurred precisely one year ago in Littleton,
Colorado. It was there that two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold,
ruthlessly gunned down a teacher and 12 fellow classmates at Columbine High
School before turning their weapons on themselves. In the months following
Columbine, innumerable parents as well as educational and political leaders
demanded a reckoning that would assess the
steps necessary to protect our nation's schools. Throughout this process we
have witnessed a rigorous debate over handguns; increased pressure for the
use of Internet filtering technology in schools and libraries; new demands
for improved school security measures; and a call for accountability among
teachers, administrators, parents and students to remain vigilant and seek
out the warning signs that might precede such an event.

Yet amidst the continuing fallout, one particular debate is only beginning
to be addressed at a national level: to what lengths may school
administrators go to nip nascent violence in the bud? How fine is the line
that separates prudent, pre-emptive disciplinary measures with the student's
right of free expression and privacy? If Columbine had happened at any other
time in our nation's history, these questions would have undoubtedly been
raised. But now that America is in the midst of embracing the promise of an
Internet-driven society, the debate of student safety versus student rights
has taken a decidedly 21st-century trajectory: Cyberspace.

As may be recalled, in the days immediately following the massacre, there
was much public discussion over the fact that Columbine co-conspirator Eric
Harris maintained a personal Web site that was rife with violent imagery and
conspicuous threats against fellow students. (Additionally, both Harris and
Klebold served as webmasters for the school's official Web site.)
Authorities were aware of Harris' site prior to the massacre, which led to
their questioning of him. Following the massacre, school districts across
the country were advised to become more aware of young people's use of the
Internet both on campus and off campus. The content of their Web sites, so
the argument went, might serve as a useful indicator to the psychological
predilections of potential timebombs-in-waiting.

In the wake of the Columbine anniversary, schools administrators continue to
be hypersensitive to the activities of students in cyberspace. While many
schools have approached their awareness of student-generated online content
as part of a greater strategy to assess their students' emotional states,
others have apparently actualized their fears by cracking down on
less-than-threatening student online activities that occur outside the
classroom. In the year that has lapsed since the massacre, the American
Civil Liberties Union has received hundreds of complaints from students who
were summarily punished for producing Web site content from home that was
deemed by school administrators as inappropriate or worrisome.

In Brimfield, Ohio, for example, 11 students were suspended soon after the
Columbine massacre for posting insensitive comments to their Goth-themed Web
site. The students, who identified with the counter-culture Goth style of
wearing black clothes and listening to groups like Marilyn Manson, made
sarcastic online comments such as the following: "I wonder how long it'll be
before we're not allowed to wear our trenchcoats anymore. You know those
screwed up kids in Colorado were wearing them, so that means I will also
kill someone, and so will all my friends." In light of Columbine, the school
superintendent labeled the students' comments as "obscene" and immediately
suspended them from school. In this case, as in the hundreds of others that
have been reported across the country, the school district in question has
been surprised to find itself in constitutional hot water, for the American
judicial system is increasingly siding with young people when it comes
students' right of expression on the Internet....

For the full text of this article, please visit

http://www.benton.org/DigitalBeat/db042000.html

thanks,


****************************************************
Andy Carvin                         Senior Associate
                               The Benton Foundation

andy@gsn.org               http://edweb.gsn.org/andy
andy@benton.org                http://www.benton.org
****************************************************
Come Visit The EdWeb Project at http://edweb.gsn.org
****************************************************

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