Re: [LM_NET] bad cyberbullying decision

[Nancy Willard <nwillard@CSRIU.ORG>]

Actually, it is worse than that. Based on how the court analyzed this situation, 
the decision actually calls into question the constitutionality of all 
anti-bullying policies - because the court indicated that the geographical origin 
of the speech was not relevant.

Weird decision. The court ruled that there was no substantial disruption because 
after talking with the counselor for about half an hour, the girl who was targeted 
willingly went to class. Thus indication of no significant disruption. Why was she 
willing to go to class? Because the counselor/principal assured her that they would 
deal with the situation and at the time she was walking to class, the aggressors 
were being called to the office and the 2 primary aggressors went home. 

Had the counselor told the girl that there was nothing they could or would do about 
the fact that 4 girls had conspired to post a video of her online where she is 
being called <expletive deleted> and that half of her class already knew about 
would there have been a disruption. 

The court stated:

The Court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young 
persons 
are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally 
fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments. 

The decision will not be upheld, but could cause major damage with school officials 
deciding not to respond to off-campus speech. 

Nancy


Date:    Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:13:20 -0500
From:    Mary Beth Roche <MRoche@EDAFF.COM>
Subject: Re: bad cyberbullying decision

It is hard, but how can a school avoid getting involved?  If the safe =
haven of school was where this student turned for help, it's sad that =
she was overturned by a judge who really didn't want to deal with this =
controversial issue. What if this girl committed suicide? Then where =
would the blame go. I'm sure something like, she asked her principal for =
help and unfortunately the court overturned it.  Yes, this bullying =
often times leads to suicide as the article below shows.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3D3882520&page=3D1

BTW Bob, I like your quotes.

Mary Beth Roche, MIS
=A0Library Director

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