We have yet another case of a student being punished for remarks made on Facebook. Tenth-grader Donny Tobolski described one of his teachers as a “fat ass who should stop eating fast food, and is a douche bag.” He was promptly suspended.
The insult was written after Tobolski was given an unusually heavy amount of biology homework. He wrote the comments on his home computer and after school hours. The first amendment did not stop Mesa Verde High School Principal Rick Messer from punishing Tobolski.
There is no question that his comments were inappropriate and disrespectful. There is no question that Messer should have called the parents and that they should have assured him that they would punish Donny and guarantee that he remove the posting. However, the use of suspension raises serious free speech issues.
We have seen a steady erosion of the free speech rights of students in the last decade. The Supreme Court accelerated that trend in its Morse decision. Former JDHS Principal Deb Morse suspended Frederick in 2002 during the Olympic Torch Relay for holding up a 14-foot banner across from the high school that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” The case ultimately led to the Supreme Court which ruled in Morse v. Frederick ruling in 2007 for the Board — a decision that I strongly disagreed with and one that has encouraged over-reaching by school officials into protected areas. Frederick, however continued to litigate, claiming among other things that his first amendment speech rights were violated under the Alaskan Constitution.
For a copy of the Morse decision, click here.
Civil libertarians hoped that Obama would appoint someone with a strong commitment to free speech and student rights. However, he appointed Sonia Sotomayor who was heavily criticized on the Second Circuit for her role in the Donniger case where she ruled against high school student Avery Doninger who contested her punishment for posting an objectionable message on an Internet site about Lewis Mills High School. When she objected to the cancellation of a school event in vulgar terms, school officials barred her from running for Senior Class secretary. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the Second Circuit upheld the right of school officials to punish students for out-of–school speech in a major blow to both the first amendment and student rights.
Increasingly, school officials are assuming the authority to police the out-of-school statements of students and punishing speech that they find objectionable (here). Teachers have also been disciplined for their own after-hours postings (here) and here).
We are raising a new generation of citizens in this increasing authoritarian environment of unchecked and at times capricious authority.
Source: ACLU
Jonathan Turley
A corollary of the right to free speech is the right to ignore.
It’s a pretty powerful tool.
Some people should learn how to use it.
Rafflaw –
But my take is when a kid can slam a teacher with impunity in a personal attack, WORLDWIDE, over something so petty as what this appears to be (homework) then our protection of it is far more dangerous than slamming the door on it’s legality.
For one instance of many, how exactly does that teacher go back into that classroom and maintain any semblance of the decorum vital to an educationl environment.
What’s happening here is tantamount to allowing deliquents to pee in our drinking water, with the excuse that “I have my right to urinate.”
There are logical limits to all “rights,” and for the benefit of society, we had better create a reasoned line of discipline to what a punk kid can get away with in the name of frustration.
I contend there is a world of difference between “speech” and lethal decibels of noise.
And what’s lethal here is certainly not the incident in question: it’s the sea-change in what is perceived as environmentally safe.
We reap what we sow, and isn’t it curious that many of the same folks who voice the “grren theme” of environmental protection find nothing wrong at all with “ear polution?”
…and if this teacher is overweight…well is it protected to run around publicly calling a black a nigger?
“I will use a Scalia type review of the subject. Where in the first amendment does it say teenagers do not have the right to free speech in their own home?”~rafflaw
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in their own home? facebook is not ‘in their own home….if this mouthy kid spray painted it all over a building, or took out ad space in a local newspaper….would that be ok with you?
Have you seen the consequences of these sort of postings on the web on some people?
The net is a relatively new public environment…harrassment and bullying need to be defined and enforced on the net before they go amok…this kid hopefully learned the difference between free speech and verbal harassment…
[facebook privacy settings decide who gets to see posts...and they certainly can go viral....]
Was the teacher a fat ass who ate fast food? If so, then the kid spoke truth.
Douchebag is a middle of the road term … above jerk but below f**ker, thus a fairly mild form of criticism expressing the young man’s opinion about the teacher’s homework assignment.
Principal Rick Messer over reacted.
patric,
I don’t think too many here would disagree that it was in poor taste and stupid, and I wouldn’t allow my children to do it, but the fact still remains that if the school punishes students for non-school activity, you can kiss the 1st Amendment away.
Rafflaw –
Free speech can indeed get messy, and free speech that can logically stand on its merits built a nation.
Speechified crap has not the spinal chord of the righteous; no moral imperative; no inherent reason for being, other than an abject lashing out at perceived indignities.
If one were to apply the concept of free speech to the lexical standards of “parts of speech” – the basis of our sentence structure – then what was stated in this case could fairly fall under the heading of an “Interjection” – that is, an emotional aspect in a sentence. But not an integral part of the structure.
So who lends credence to the braying of a jackass in a field? And who of sound mind elevates it to the level of oratory in need of protection?
I will echo what Mike S. stated above. I don’t understand how a school can discipline a child for activities outside of school and in no way sponsored or paid for by the school. I will use a Scalia type review of the subject. Where in the first amendment does it say teenagers do not have the right to free speech in their own home?
PatricParamedic,
Free speech can get messy.
Gyges 1, February 15, 2011 at 12:05 pm
On the one hand: Never write anything with the expectation that it won’t get out.
On the other hand: Assuming the kid wasn’t at school, how is this any of the school’s business?
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I also wised off to a teache r in school…and received detention. But I never put it in writing and circulated it.
I do think there is a difference.
I suspect our continued national tolerance – and indeed our ignoble acquiescence – to foul-mouthed expressions by the undisciplined young, can only succeed in decaying the platforms from which we all speak. There exists no upside whatsoever – on the grand scale of societal development – to anointing verbal garbage (such as the quoted personal attack on a teacher issuing homework) the dignity of free speech.
The crapifying of America is an ugly thing to behold, and likely is already rebounding in insidious ways.
In my view, those of mature mind do not align themselves with juvenile, inappropriate spasms of pubescent anarchy.
The fact is, there is nothing worthy of protection in filthy rhetoric, either personal or on the airwaves. Had this petulant twit (and let me guess, is that his mother, of all people, in support of her righteous insurrectionist? At least, until it’s directed at her?)
Pity, but we have, in less than two generations, deteriorated to the self-centered, myopic point where we each believe we are the protagonists in our own “reality” TV show. And we have the right to script it anyway we want. Except when, “Oh, my God, dude. You mean there are like, you know dude, like, consequences?”
The fact that the internet elevates this tawdry snippet to “news” is frightening in itself. The fact that a mother might think a student can call his teacher a “douche bag” to the entire planet – as opposed to a private conversation, which is at least part of what he should be learning – absence consequence, is laughable.
The fact that any thinking adult believes not reigning in the crud is a moral imperative, strikes me as group-think insanity.
Of course any relevant discourse would likely be totally lost on the mouthy “victim” in this case; I doubt seriously he could comprehend the concepts we discuss here. The lexicon of his web-speak precludes the logic of forethought.
So for the benefit of the “Teens of Twitter” we shall reduce this subject to its lowest common denominator, and keep it within the confines of limited character typage:
“If you don’t like apples plunking you on the head . . . don’t shake the tree.”
On the one hand: Never write anything with the expectation that it won’t get out.
On the other hand: Assuming the kid wasn’t at school, how is this any of the school’s business?
Mike S.,
“Back in my day I insulted teachers to their faces. It got me some yelling reprimands by the administration, some detention and even a special assembly to ream me out. It didn’t help my grades of course and I was disliked by most staff, but that was the extent of it.”
Copy that.
The good thing about detention though is I could always get a week ahead on my school work.
Back in my day I insulted teachers to their faces. It got me some yelling reprimands by the administration, some detention and even a special assembly to ream me out. It didn’t help my grades of course and I was disliked by most staff, but that was the extent of it. Back then too, the school administration’s authority ended at their front door and/or on the bus. I believe that free speech should include our youth. The ongoing authoritarian creep in this country is disturbing.
“over-reaching by school officials into protected areas.” ~JT
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sorry, I can empathathize with the teacher that [One of my high school teachers (I graduated in 1984) was tried and convicted of raping three of his students, another of raping his daughter, and three more of them were never convicted, but surely should have been, of statutory rape.]BUT; that is apples and oranges.
It is uncomfortable to see how the kids are acting these days….it would not be so if people were not allowed to by-pass teachers with $$$ and threats to the administration etc. Kids are simply reflecting back what they have been taught. Teachers are no longer given any authority in their own classrooms. I have a friend who has had to swallow changing grades and passing bullying idiots because the parents were wealthy and put pressure on the administrators. This is just graft come home to roost….
This is BS….
We just had yet another case of a political rebellion being started by comments made on Facebook.
Not to mention the money spent litigating their assumption of authoritarian powers.
Shouldn’t there be some sort of ‘in school’/in personam jurisdiction regarding these cases?
Why should we use a different logic when it comes to schools than when it comes to courts?
I can only think of this.
I went to school in a fairly wealthy, very nice community.
One of my high school teachers (I graduated in 1984) was tried and convicted of raping three of his students, another of raping his daughter, and three more of them were never convicted, but surely should have been, of statutory rape.
Of course, we could not only insult them with impunity, and did(in terms that make this young man’s posting look like the scribblings of a virgin priest in training) but we could talk about what they were up to, and that’s how they got caught.
If you teach a kid that it’s not OK to refer to his teacher (in likely accurate terms) as a “fat ass who should stop eating fast food, and is a douche bag” on his own time and in a non-school environment, that’s a child that going to think twice about telling anyone that his or her teacher is raping/molesting/getting free slave labor/snorting cocaine of cheerleader’s asses – you get the idea.
Make authority figures gods and you will get just that – with all the whimsy, capriciousness, and cruelty that the gods of old were known for.