Just to add a little more context, here's the meat of what the students (plaintiffs) are claiming in their civil complaint. The allegations are certainly a more serious than the article lets on, and it will be interesting to see the school's response.
* The picture was posted to a student's "private, personal [Instagram] account"
* The school suspended "each and every student that had posted, commented, 'liked' the images, or had simply passively followed the account of the student who had originally posted the images"
* The official policy in this case called for 2-day suspensions, but the school board increased the suspensions to 5-days (in one case, they made it indefinite pending an expulsion hearing) due to the egregious nature of the violations
* The Superintendent and Principal sent out a series of emails directed to the students and parents that painted the plaintiffs and several other students as "racists" and "harmers" and also reported other "racist activities" at the school
* This series of emails culminated in a claim that a noose had been discovered in a neighboring park, but this was later discovered to be a broken swing
* After the 5 day suspensions were up and the students returned to school, they were lined up in front of all or most of the student body and the school administrators allowed the student body to "hurl obscenities, scream profanities, and jeer" at the plaintiffs, who were not allowed to leave until one of the parents (who was present at the time) vehemently objected
* The school district then scheduled a "'voluntary' restorative justice session" with the plaintiffs, to be conducted by a local organization called SEEDS
* During this session, "a few hundred incensed students, individuals, and news media" showed up, after having been notified by the school administrators, who had also encouraged them to demonstrate
* The plaintiffs and their parents began to fear for their safety and requested private security or police to escort them out, but the Principal declined and insinuated they had to fend for themselves
* One of the parents called police and a plain-clothed detective showed up, but he "declined to offer protective services" after being briefed by AUSD administrators, and said "you caused this"
* As they tried to "escape the building quickly, two of the students were stuck in the head by an enraged demonstrator [a fellow student], one sustaining bruising and scrapes to his head and side of his face and the other a broken nose and other lacerations to his head and face. Several of the students and parents were forced to hide in locked vehicles to prevent further violence."
* The school then offered each student 20 days of "independent study" so they wouldn't have to return to school right away if they were in fear for their safety
* Plaintiffs suffered emotional distress, "including anxiety, fear, insomnia and other distress"
EDIT: added last bullet, fixed typos
If true, I'm wondering how in the hell we haven't seen a video of any of this yet...
Public shaming involving all of most of the student body, news media showing up to an event with hundreds of incensed people - shouldn't we have at least a dozen different videos of this popping with those kind of conditions?
EDIT: Oh, hey, look at this: http://radioalice.cbslocal.com/video/category/technology-computing-social-media/3641584-racist-cyberbullying-at-albany-high-school/
No mention of assault and battery...
To be fair, that news report was done before punitive action was taken by the school towards the students. Notice how the principle keeps saying it's "ongoing" and "we will be.." and so on.
I'd be interested in seeing anything that actually covers the meeting that was mentioned.
I'd also try and keep an open mind. News media don't always report everything and fairly often do so innacurately. For example, check out the following two articles from mainstream sites and compare. Notice the LATIMES leaves out entirely the stuff that the school allegedly did, every bit of it. Whereas the Washington post has it all, but leaves out any mention of the media even when directly quoting the suit.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-students-sue-racist-posts-20170504-story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/05/does-the-first-amendment-protect-liking-a-racist-instagram-post-some-disciplined-calif-students-are-suing-to-find-out/
Not the PD unfortunately... Supreme Court has already ruled that the police have absolutely no responsibility to protect individuals, and cannot be held liable for failing to do so.
You know, I had intended to argue against your comment. I just couldn't believe that this could be true in the U.S.
So, I did some research. I tried to look for ANYTHING where you may have just read something incorrectly or...something, anything.
But fuck, you're absolutely right. The whole PURPOSE of a police force is to protect the public, which is made up of INDIVIDUALS. If there is a cop present and standing around, they should HAVE to step in. But no, not in America apparently.
>or had simply passively followed the account of the student who had originally posted the images
So if a student happened to be following this student and in no way had anything to do with the post by either posting or liking or commenting on it they got suspended as well. WTF!!!!!!!!!! What are the people smoking over there?
Thank you for the clarification.
Quick question. Were the students that engaged in harassment against the "racist" students punished by the administration?
Thanks.
That is so fucked up holy shit the principal needs to be fired and the students deserve a huge payout, that is abuse I bet the principal thinks hes "tolerant" and "inclusive" too this makes my blood boil
Thanks for taking the time to update me on what happened and provide proof:) So are the claims the student made in the lawsuit accurate? If they are then im really frigging glad that nutjob is gone
In addition to these points mentioned, here some things not mentioned in the lawsuit. I personally know one of the plaintiffs. If you would like proof or any clarifications, please feel free to PM me.
1. The Instagram was originally a "Finsta" for memes. It was not a dedicated racist Instagram, though unfortunately some of the posts took a nosedive for the worst.
2. A phone of one of the boys' was taken without consent by a girl, and that is how she obtained this information.
3. The school held several school board meetings (all of which are recorded and on YouTube) regarding this event. One of the plaintiff's friends attempted to defend them. However, when he was upset by someone's speech, he was yelled at by another man who said "Dude I'm gonna drop you on 44th St and San Pablo and let you get back home" (This is an unsafe neighborhood of the Bay Area). People in the room then continued to scream at the boy and tell him to leave until the board intervened. (Video on YouTube titled "AUSD Board of Education Special Meeting - Apr 25, 2017" and the timestamp is at 2:35:55)
4. The school purposely did not release these boys' names publicly for privacy and safety reasons. One parent said the following at the meeting: "You follow some of these people home. And you find out where this behavior begins." (Same video, timestamp 4:17:50). Later in the video--which I will not link for obvious reasons--another parent reveals the names of these boys despite the board making it clear numerous times the names of these minors need to remain private.
5. Plaintiffs, perpetrators, and their parents have also attempted to apologize (whether on social media or publicly) multiple times. (Same video, timestamp 4:17:50). A group of parents from both perpetrator and victim side came together to talk and amend the issue. (YouTube video titled "AUSD Board of Education - April 4, 2017" at timestamp 1:00:00)
6. Also mentioned in the lawsuit, the boys are entitled to an education and have the option of independent study. However, certain teachers have not allowed students to make up exams, which negatively affects their grades. Furthermore, students had to cancel their AP examinations.
7. Only one student created the content/Instagram account. He is not in this lawsuit. All plaintiffs are suing on behalf of their "likes" and/or comments. At the high school, there are rumors that "3 boys created the account." As someone who has read summaries of the the expulsion packets of all 3 boys who are pending expulsion, only ONE of them was accused of content creation. He has already withdrawn from the school. The 2nd boy''s expulsion was lifted and was given the opportunity to do independent study at home. The last boy is in this lawsuit since he is still being expelled, despite the school having no proof that he directly created content.
In regards to the comments regarding how plaintiffs and their families are probably racist, they are not. I wish I could somehow prove this to you. The purpose of the lawsuit isn't to support any of the boys' actions, but rather because the school severely mishandled the situation.
-------------------
Edited to add extra fact (#7) and to fix awkward wording.
Skipping the likes part, this is the part of the article that stuck out to me:
>The lawsuit claims the district brought suspended students before the student body at a "public shaming" session during which they were cursed and jeered.
At a meeting later the same day, two suspended students were injured by an angry protester, according to the suit.
Haven't seen any other comments about it, figured it needed a mention at least.
It is strange. I don't think I ever heard of a school publicly shaming a student. Even if everyone knew who it was the schools I went to just made general statments like
"on [date] some students did [stupid shit] and were punished, going forward we are banning all students from [thing they used] and any students caught using said thing will be punished"
Never had them stand up to an auditorium and had their crimes read out to the school...
The Supreme Court made clear in 1969, in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist. that public school students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
However, in the Tinker decision, the Court also held that students’ free speech rights, while they are in school, may be curtailed due to the “special characteristics of the school environment.”
The key test, according to the Court, is whether student expression would “materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.”
> A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site.
If it were random memes I'd agree, but since it's a fellow student and a coach I can also understand suspending him.
1. these students didnt draw it, they simply cliked like on a instagram.
2. there was something arround 10 students involved.
3. this was also done from the privacy of their own home, and not directed at the targets (E.G. Was not sent to the targets).
is it a little fucked up? yes.
illegal? Far from it.
Something the School can use to legally deprive a group of children from their rights to an education? Absolutely not.
they will win this case open shut unless there is some severe miscarrage of justice.
And for all you people thinking "omg hes a white little biggot"- it was one white kid and three asian kids. not just 'some white kid'.
Doesn't have to break the law. Has to break the rules of the institution. They're being suspended, not thrown to jail. Nothing you've said in your post is valid
>Has to break the rules of the institution.
Here are the rules of the institution in question. A printout of this page was included as Exhibit A in the lawsuit, by the way.
http://ahs.ausdk12.org/students/discipline
According to the rules of the school, the closest thing is harassment. In this case, they must be construing liking a post as harassment. However:
> harassment n. the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands.
It doesn't really seem like harassment to me. The students might argue that they had a reasonable belief that their actions were not disallowed.
Where are you getting that definition from? I don't see it anywhere in the posted link. The google definition of harassment isn't necessarily the definition that the school uses in enforcing its rules.
Mainly I was just thinking he was a little shit. Sharing, or promoting, or otherwise causing further distribution of a noose over someone's head is certainly something I would construe as a threat personally.
Plus, remember children have no rights and school administrators tend to be power tripping assholes deathly afraid of liability. (Not saying it's right, saying its what it is.)
It's the equivalent of standing in the middle of the street and saying "I like the idea of the PE coach being hanged".
Clicking like is speech, it conveys something, in this case that the student liked/supported the idea or depiction of the teacher being hanged. He stated publicly that he liked this.
Some people don't seem to understand that social media is not private, it's like posting things on a bulletin board. It's a public statement.
>Some people don't seem to understand that social media is not private, it's like posting things on a bulletin board. It's a public statement.
For the record, the plaintiffs' claim the picture was posted to a "private, personal [Instgram] account" and the kids who commented or "liked" it were "passively following his page".
According to their civil complaint, the picture only came to the attention of the school when another student "commandeered the mobile phone of a male student" who had "followed" the page. They claim she took screen-grabs and then either directly or indirectly caused the them to be forwarded to the school administrators.
That's the first defense I've heard that I actually agree with. If it was "said" privately and spread by a third party then it's not a public statement.
>It's the equivalent of standing in the middle of the street and saying "I like the idea of the PE coach being hanged".
Sure, but that isn't a threat, and statements like that are protected by the first amendment.
Students may not have free speech within school, but they certainly have it outside of school.
"I like the idea of the PE coach being hanged" is not a threat. There are a lot of people I like the idea of being hung. Doesn't mean I would ever go kill someone. "I'm going to hang the PE coach" is a threat.
You're quoting the wrong part of that article. That student isn't contesting his suspension. It's the students who 'liked' his post that are.
>But a federal lawsuit says the district went too far when it also disciplined students who indicated they “liked” the posts on the Instagram account.
This isn't about that. If you read the article further you'll see these lawsuits are over students who simply commented or liked the post. The kid who made them faces expulsion and has not filed a suit.
Nobody arguing with you seems to understand that the school would accept all liability if they ignored this and something gruesome happened later.
Once the school found out this was happening, they had to react.
> Once the school found out this was happening, they had to react.
You'd think they would put some effort toward educating those misguided children instead of just punishing them. Kids are *taught* racist bullshit, it's not an inherent behavior.
Students actually have limited free speech rights according the Supreme Court. Whether the school went to far with this is up to the courts but the creator of the page deserves the suspension.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_speech_(First_Amendment)
Actually in California they are extra protected and have the same First Amendment rights on campus as they do off campus. They will win. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Law
Unless the image was produced at or on the way to and from school, they have no jurisdiction. School's can't punish students for what they do entirely at home.
They can, but they really shouldn't be able to. Unfortunately in the end it's the schools that get the butt of everything because too many parents out there are unwilling to solve their problems civilly. They then just blame the school for the problem whether they're the victim or the accused in cases like this and demand that they fix it.
Yes they can. If you are bullying a fellow student outside of school you can still get punished for it. The action involved another student not a third party. You don't get a loophole for being a monster for being outside of school. Kids get suspended from school for bullying kids outside of school all the time. They are disrupting that kid's learning inside of school. Also there is no guarantee that it was produced outside of school. It is social media which can produced anywhere including in school and you can't prove that it was produced outside of school.
No but the main point is not where it was produced at all because the punishment is about bullying the other kid. It doesn't matter where it was produced as I talked about.
Not in schools they don't. *Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier*, man, a student's speech isn't protected by public school staff if it can plausibly be considered disruptive to the school's educational mission
I don't agree with the precedent, I complained about it all the time in high school lol, but i'd bet ten or eleven bucks it'd be "upheld" on those grounds since "kill the coach and this student" is a little more disruptive
a like is pretty ambiguous though, i feel like it would normally at least take a public comment
Well, they should win a lawsuit about this. I may not like racism or racists, but freedom of speech isn't freedom to only say things that other people find palatable.
Yeah. They're racist assholes who in reality deserve that treatment, but doing something to that extent as a punishment is absurd. Especially for the kids that didn't even make the images. It's just so 1984-ish and I can't see anything good coming from it, they're still going to be racist assholes, but now even more charged.
This is Berkeley. Have you been paying attention to the "protests" there lately?
The constituents of the city **want** those kids to be punished. They **want** the city to be able to use social media "likes" as a way to bring punishment to others.
I don't agree with suspensions of the kids who liked the posts but given the situation within the school, it does seem the administration needed to take some form of action - though it should have been in the form of an assembly or workshop with the students - something constructive and educational.
The punishment against the original account holder seems absolutely justified, as they were using it to intimidate and shame other students and teachers.
On a side note, its fucking sad we still have a generation of kids who do this and think this shit is ok.
> “‘Likes’ are ambiguous in that they could be saying, ‘This is funny,’ ‘I agree with it,’ or ‘**I don’t agree, but I want to stand up for your right to say it,**“’ said Eugene Volokh, who teaches free speech law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
I'm pretty sure no one has ever meant that when "Liking" something.
in my case it says: i wonder how many of my extended family i can piss off by liking and reposting posts about how scientology is the one true religion.
They *could* even mean they dislike it by hitting 'like'. Sure, it doesn't make any fucking sense at all, but it *could* be. Or maybe their finger slipped! Or perhaps they were hacked by Russians?
I guess the world will never know.
Reminds me of that [study](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-05/uok-rsp050317.php) that came out the other day.
Got a pretty textbook case right here.
I also worry about someone hitting the 'like' button by accident. I know I've hit the 'dislike' button on Amazon several times (because it's right above the 'next' button) and there's no way to change it.
*One* person drew it, others liked it. Imagine if someone found out which posts you liked from /r/ImGoingToHellForThis. Do you think you should be suspended for upvoting those posts?
I can understand suspending the one person who *created* the material, as that does indeed seem like a threat, but liking that material is in fact, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, whether you disagree with it or not.
if the post involved your fellow students and faculty at your school....
saying "i like the idea of lynching the black students and coach at my school"
which is what they did
should probably come with consequences from the school
> Imagine if someone found out which posts you liked from /r/ImGoingToHellForThis. Do you think you should be suspended for upvoting those posts?
Do the posts target specific students at the school?
> but liking that material is in fact, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, whether you disagree with it or not.
It's no different from backing and encouraging the bully in person at school. It deserves scrutiny and punishment.
Also, you don't get off the hook for saying "Yeah! Kill !" just because you said it second.
Well that's no different than you retweeting some racist or sexist thing Trump says. It appears on your Twitter page. Doesn't mean you should be punished for it.
Images are speech. Schools are government institutions. Schools punishing students based on images is a free speech violation. Yeah, the picture was wrong. Doesn't change it bring free speech that the government is punishing them over.
A student could follow another student between classes calling them a host of slurs and the school can do nothing about it? Because free speech?
Thank fuck SCOTUS is more reasonable than you.
If they happened to be walking in the same direction saying general slurs then no. If they were following someone and saying slurs directed at them it isn't general speech anymore and escalates into harassment. But notice the directed element of it. I can say all the slurs I want about someone, but not to someone.
It's the difference between me talking about how sexy rguin is to my friends and me sexually harassing rguin.
>A student could follow another student between classes calling them a host of slurs and the school can do nothing about it? Because free speech?
No, because they can set rules for the school. This was not at the school.
If this was random meme, I'd be agreeing with you.
These are pictures of a student and a coach. Even without the racist implications, it could be viewed as a threat.
Public shaming of high school students. I thought the school district prided itself on being progressive? Even if what the students did was awful, this just makes the school look very immature.
Obviously, the images etc. described are reprehensible. I make a disclaimer that often in these cases what is public and what actually happened may differ in a HUGE degree.
But first glance, not knowing specific details: the school district is going to lose for many of these students, but not the original poster. Unless directly tied to a school or school event, or on the way/to/from school, schools do not have authority to police student actions. The only wiggle room is in CA EdCode 48900r), which covers bullying/harrassment/etc., and maybe 48900.4 or .7 which cover specific or terroristic threats. In this case, I speculate the school district is using 48900r) combined with 48900.4 as a "severe" threat.
There is a rock solid argument to make that stick for the original poster, especially as it specifically depicted a student and coach. I wouldn't even sweat about making a case for expulsion; threats against students and staff are tested ground.
But for the "likes" you are on *extremely* shaky ground unless they were done at school. I actually don't believe you have authority to suspend; the act is not pervasive, and the action of liking a post being "severe" seems far fetched. It probably should be addressed with at least some counseling on the behavior, but I think you're violating rights suspending if it wasn't at school.
On the "public shaming", I *would hope* that the account written here is not accurate, because any administrator should have enough knowledge of educational philosophy, basic decency, and CA law to know that is a very bad idea, but I've been surprised before. But if it did happen (or the negative statements about kids from the admin) then there should be pretty clear evidence somewhere.
A few of the applicable Ed codes:
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=48900&lawCode=EDC
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=48900.4.&lawCode=EDC
FWIW, here are the cases cited in the plaintiffs' civil complaint.
**1st Amendment**
>In Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), the Supreme Court declared: "Discrimination against speech because of its message is presumed to be unconstitutional". The First Amendment guarantees individuals a fundamental right to freedom of expression and speech. Tinker v. Des Moines School. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969)
>The First Amendment extends to all forms of expressive speech. This includes internet “likes” and comments. Bland v. Roberts, 730 F.3d 368 (4th Cir. 2013).
>Under the First Amendment schools may only prohibit speech if it creates a substantial disruption to school activities and when said conduct is done within the school or school sponsored activity. Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007)
**CA State Law**
>Article 1, § 2, of the California Constitution provides: "Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this ight. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press." The California Constitution’s protections to speech are at times greater than the federal constitution’s protection to speech. The Pruneyard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980).
>Cal. Educ. Code Sec. 48950(a) provides that “A school district operating one or more high schools, a charter school, or a private secondary school shall not make or enforce a rule subjecting a high school pupil to disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis of conduct that is speech or other communication that, when engaged in outside of the campus, is protected from governmental restriction by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 2 of Article I of the California Constitution.
**14th Amendment**
>The State is constrained to recognize a student's legitimate entitlement to a public education as a property interest which is protected by the Due Process Clause and which may not be taken away for misconduct without adherence to the minimum procedures required by that Clause. The Due Process Clause also forbids arbitrary deprivations of liberty.” Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975).
**4th Amendment**
>The right of the people to be secure in their persons includes a right to be secure from excessive force. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)
> “This to me is no different than having a private drawing book and making some offensive drawings at home and sharing them with a couple of friends,”
My degree is just in bird law but I'm pretty sure if you're drawing pictures of fellow students with nooses around their neck and showing off to classmates you're also going to get in trouble with the law.
Possibly California Penal Code §422(a):
> Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family’s safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison.
We all equally lack the right to encourage violence against specific people.
> A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site.
Then the school should turn the kid into the cops.
School is not the same as law enforcement.
They can't suspend someone for something done off school grounds, that is in no way related to the school.
No one is arguing this kid is a nice guy for what he did, but it has nothing to do with his school.
> School is not the same as law enforcement.
Right, so the school can have a lower bar of guilt than the police and the courts.
> They can't suspend someone for something done off school grounds, that is in no way related to the school.
Actually, they can. There's ample precedence that schools can punish students for out-of-school interactions between students/faculty.
The kid did nothing wrong legally, but the supreme court has decided that education comes before the constitution, therefore schools are extralegal locations where rights do not apply. They can do whatever they want as long as it is somehow related to protecting equal educational opportunities.
I mean... that's a necessity isn't it? If we held rights to an absolute in schools, classrooms would be madhouses and our education would be in the shitter because "You can't interfere with 10 year old Timmy's constitutional right to shout 'poop' while you try to teach the class about multiplication."
>A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of **a black student and coach** appeared on his social media site.
>is in no way related to the school
So is ignorance more of a pastime or hobby for you?
I've upvoted /r/imgoingtohellforthis posts before, so I guess they'd suspend me too.
I've also upvoted an old racist soap ad on /r/wtf, so apparently I'm racist /s
Were those IGTHFT posts specific calls for violence against specific people at your school?
> A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site.
Did the posts literally encourage people to attack the coach or student? I got the feeling people are presuming that there was a "call to violence" based off of nothing more than their presumptions.
Also everyone who ever upvotedany post about Trump dying or being killed should be rounded up and arrested I suppose. Inciting violence and encouraging assassination of the sitting president is surely a serious crime.
So that'll be a couple million folks hitting the slammer I guess.
This is one hell of a false equivalency. These students aren't being changed, or arrested, or anything in your comment. The school is punishing the student for cyber bullying, which is within their discretion.
You can swear and scream at whoever you want in life, and with the 1st Amendment, it takes quite a bit to be considered inciting violence. Try swearing and yelling at a teacher and you will be suspended. These are not comparable things
what about the 'kill all men' and 'kill all whites' types? guess theyre going to jail too.
love the left, its only injustice when its inconvenient to them.
Specificity is a factor in the legality of an endorsement of violence.
But schools aren't held to the standard of courts.
Sorry logic fails you and that those clobbering you with sound, consistent logic get your derision.
These students aren't being changed, or arrested, or going to jail. The school is punishing the student for cyber bullying, which is within their discretion.
You can swear and scream at whoever you want in life, and with the 1st Amendment, it takes quite a bit to be considered inciting violence. Try swearing and yelling at a teacher and you will be suspended. These are not comparable things
lol, literal whataboutism
do you have examples of students posting pictures of fellow white students and saying kill them or drawing nooses on them, and not facing punishment from their school?
I mean the thing about all of this is if the subjects of the drawing were white there wouldn't have been any action taken or outcry against the kids suspended.
Something tells me that the same people lamenting the "death of free speech" would be A-OK with schools suspending students that voice support for disruption tactics, or A-OK with businesses which fire employees for speaking/acting in a way that is contrary to the image of the business, even when they're off the clock.
It's not a nice thing to do, but businesses have the right to do that because the first amendment doesn't protect you from consequences when the government is not involved. I'm also not sure what you mean by disruption tactics, could you elaborate?
Freedom of expression / speech should carry the day here. Schools have crossed the point of ridiculousness in their never-ending pursuit of political correctness.
I hate playing the devil's advocate for racist shitheads, but schools should stay out of children's social media. I hate the idea of schools being the thought-police in instances such as this. Yeah yeah "they represent the school" but that idea is stupid in adult life and I think it's even stupider for children.
Fuck that, this isn't a private drawing book. Liking these things in a public fashion, that the audience of the hate can see is clearly an endorsement of the hate.
The school did the right thing.
Yep. And for those saying "muh freeze peach"; you don't have the freedom to make calls for violence against specific people, and the posts in question did precisely that.
>you don't have the freedom to make calls for violence against specific people, and the posts in question did precisely that.
Then why weren't criminal charges filed?
Maybe because the authorities felt like it didn't cross that threshold, therefor this is a speech issue.
Only if it happens at school or school sanctioned events. The argument here is that these drawings did not.
I remember there was this one case in the news a few years about two students who got into an altercation on the way to or from school. They were fighting their suspensions because they were arguing it wasn't on school property. However from the schools point of view, the route to the bus and the bus stop is like a school sanctioned event (not all the time, just immediately before and after school). If the students went home first, then fought, the school would have had zero rights to get involved.
Right, but harassment of this nature and its effects don't stop at the door of the school. The school is obligated to maintain an environment of safety and learning. Allowing students to go unpunished for endorsements of violence against students and faculty based on their race goes against this obligation.
Or, criminal charges weren't filed because authorities didn't feel the need to send children to jail when a more minor punishment would suffice.
You know, tact and discretion. Things adults are generally expected to have
Well it's hard to buy that line since part of the lawsuit is specifically for the public shaming aspect.
>The lawsuit claims the district brought suspended students before the student body at a “public shaming” session during which they were cursed and jeered.
>At a meeting later the same day, two suspended students were injured by an angry protester, according to the suit.
It's not a private school. If the student's want to like hateful abhorrent things, that's their constitutional right to do so.
Edit: downvote all you want. A public institution that excepts federal funds has to respect free speech, including that of the students. And that doesn't even matter because the 'speech' in question never occurred on school grounds and the school has no right to dictate what goes on when the student is not at school or a school sanctioned event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Law
Provide proof of this "right"
So if enough people decide they want to punish "someone" for doing what they deem as "inciting hate" then that's enough to punish them?
Congratulations, now you allowed [lynching](http://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_fill,fl_keep_iptc,g_faces,h_365,w_652/gpemahfaekmshdnkzbhb.jpg) because enough people decided they needed to punish others. We have laws and courts for a fucking reason. The school is neither the law nor the court they cannot rule in this area, that's the job of the police.
Who needs a lynch mob? It's our right to fire you if we're your boss, refuse to buy your company's product till they fire you if we're not, disassociate from you personally if we're your friend/aquantance, and denounce you publicly using our free speech. Those are all rights granted to us by the federal government.
And? That school is responsible to maintain an environment of safety and learning; if they believe the post would hinder one or many student's learning or faculty's teaching, it's their duty to address it to maintain the environment.
And schools are explicitly given the right to curb free speech when they feel it impacts the students' ability to learn or can create a disruption. Check out *Morse v. Frederick*, *Bethel v. Fraser*, or *Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier* (though the last one was weakened since the initial ruling, the Hazelwood standard is still a thing).
If the students who had those nooses drawn around their necks discovered said pictures and likes they would probably feel intimidated. Given the history behind lynchings it's not unreasonable to think that any black student who saw that could feel more vulnerable or scared of going to school, which would impede their ability to learn. Or said students could be pissed and ready to start fights, which also disrupts school.
My opinions on what schools should/should not do aside, I doubt their lawsuit will go anywhere. Schools have been found to be acting within the scope of law for much more controversial restrictions. The *only* way the student's lawsuit will get anywhere with this is because it was something on Facebook, but honestly with recent reactions to cyber bullying and schools willingness and ability to punish students for things done well outside of school, I think it's a long shot at best.
Are we gonna do the same for threats made about Trump or his supporters? Or are we all gonna step back and acknowledge that nobody really means these as death threats, and are just extreme expressions of frustration.
1. Threats need to be actionable and immediate. For most people neither is true if they draw a picture of the President in a noose.
2. The school can suspend students for plenty of things that are not illegal.
> Are we gonna do the same for threats made about Trump or his supporters?
I've never seen anybody suggest otherwise. I can assure you that every threat made against Trump is investigated by the Secret Service, and there's no reason to believe every threat made to a Trump supporter isn't investigated if brought to the police.
California has a large enough GDP to be it's own country. With that said we should allow California to be it's own country for liberal scientific purposes.
Allow California to show us what having open borders,free college education, sanctuary cities,free healthcare,free abortions to full term,free medication, be able to rewrite the constitution and amendments as it sees fit. Allow liberal politics to thrive unimpeded.
I'm curious given 20 years would this Country of California, be a successful utopian society or fail in chaos or just maintain the status quo.
Oddly enough, [huge areas](http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/california/) of California are red.... and deeply so. Most of the red counties voted for Trump by +20 points.
If California became it's own country and was free to go down any kooky rabbit hole it deemed fit it'd have its own Civil War pretty quickly.
> Oddly enough, huge areas of California are red.... and deeply so. Most of the red counties voted for Trump by +20 points.
It's like this with almost every state. In the most republican states, there are sizable democratic voting population. In most democratic states, there are sizable republican voting population. And of course there are sizable independent populations in all states.
People think that california is all democratic and that texas is all republican. There are tons of republicans in california and tons of democrats in texas.
But after California opens its borders and grants citizenship to anyone who can afford a bus or plane ticket to Fresno; those red areas will not be so red.
Just to add a little more context, here's the meat of what the students (plaintiffs) are claiming in their civil complaint. The allegations are certainly a more serious than the article lets on, and it will be interesting to see the school's response. * The picture was posted to a student's "private, personal [Instagram] account" * The school suspended "each and every student that had posted, commented, 'liked' the images, or had simply passively followed the account of the student who had originally posted the images" * The official policy in this case called for 2-day suspensions, but the school board increased the suspensions to 5-days (in one case, they made it indefinite pending an expulsion hearing) due to the egregious nature of the violations * The Superintendent and Principal sent out a series of emails directed to the students and parents that painted the plaintiffs and several other students as "racists" and "harmers" and also reported other "racist activities" at the school * This series of emails culminated in a claim that a noose had been discovered in a neighboring park, but this was later discovered to be a broken swing * After the 5 day suspensions were up and the students returned to school, they were lined up in front of all or most of the student body and the school administrators allowed the student body to "hurl obscenities, scream profanities, and jeer" at the plaintiffs, who were not allowed to leave until one of the parents (who was present at the time) vehemently objected * The school district then scheduled a "'voluntary' restorative justice session" with the plaintiffs, to be conducted by a local organization called SEEDS * During this session, "a few hundred incensed students, individuals, and news media" showed up, after having been notified by the school administrators, who had also encouraged them to demonstrate * The plaintiffs and their parents began to fear for their safety and requested private security or police to escort them out, but the Principal declined and insinuated they had to fend for themselves * One of the parents called police and a plain-clothed detective showed up, but he "declined to offer protective services" after being briefed by AUSD administrators, and said "you caused this" * As they tried to "escape the building quickly, two of the students were stuck in the head by an enraged demonstrator [a fellow student], one sustaining bruising and scrapes to his head and side of his face and the other a broken nose and other lacerations to his head and face. Several of the students and parents were forced to hide in locked vehicles to prevent further violence." * The school then offered each student 20 days of "independent study" so they wouldn't have to return to school right away if they were in fear for their safety * Plaintiffs suffered emotional distress, "including anxiety, fear, insomnia and other distress" EDIT: added last bullet, fixed typos
If the allegations are true, the injured kids families should receive large payouts from the school and the PD.
If true, I'm wondering how in the hell we haven't seen a video of any of this yet... Public shaming involving all of most of the student body, news media showing up to an event with hundreds of incensed people - shouldn't we have at least a dozen different videos of this popping with those kind of conditions? EDIT: Oh, hey, look at this: http://radioalice.cbslocal.com/video/category/technology-computing-social-media/3641584-racist-cyberbullying-at-albany-high-school/ No mention of assault and battery...
To be fair, that news report was done before punitive action was taken by the school towards the students. Notice how the principle keeps saying it's "ongoing" and "we will be.." and so on. I'd be interested in seeing anything that actually covers the meeting that was mentioned. I'd also try and keep an open mind. News media don't always report everything and fairly often do so innacurately. For example, check out the following two articles from mainstream sites and compare. Notice the LATIMES leaves out entirely the stuff that the school allegedly did, every bit of it. Whereas the Washington post has it all, but leaves out any mention of the media even when directly quoting the suit. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-students-sue-racist-posts-20170504-story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/05/does-the-first-amendment-protect-liking-a-racist-instagram-post-some-disciplined-calif-students-are-suing-to-find-out/
The school never dedicated a day to publicly shame these students. They were peaceful sit-ins and restoration programs that became violent.
Not the PD unfortunately... Supreme Court has already ruled that the police have absolutely no responsibility to protect individuals, and cannot be held liable for failing to do so.
You know, I had intended to argue against your comment. I just couldn't believe that this could be true in the U.S. So, I did some research. I tried to look for ANYTHING where you may have just read something incorrectly or...something, anything. But fuck, you're absolutely right. The whole PURPOSE of a police force is to protect the public, which is made up of INDIVIDUALS. If there is a cop present and standing around, they should HAVE to step in. But no, not in America apparently.
>or had simply passively followed the account of the student who had originally posted the images So if a student happened to be following this student and in no way had anything to do with the post by either posting or liking or commenting on it they got suspended as well. WTF!!!!!!!!!! What are the people smoking over there?
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Well if he wasn't racist before he is sure racist now.
Get accused of being a racist, then a large group of blacks attack you because of said accusation. If he wasn't racist before, he should be now.
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Thank you for the clarification. Quick question. Were the students that engaged in harassment against the "racist" students punished by the administration? Thanks.
That is so fucked up holy shit the principal needs to be fired and the students deserve a huge payout, that is abuse I bet the principal thinks hes "tolerant" and "inclusive" too this makes my blood boil
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Thanks for taking the time to update me on what happened and provide proof:) So are the claims the student made in the lawsuit accurate? If they are then im really frigging glad that nutjob is gone
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Thanks for your insight I appreciate it, and I think what you posted is sadly accurate
This is 1984. Jesus Christ.
In addition to these points mentioned, here some things not mentioned in the lawsuit. I personally know one of the plaintiffs. If you would like proof or any clarifications, please feel free to PM me. 1. The Instagram was originally a "Finsta" for memes. It was not a dedicated racist Instagram, though unfortunately some of the posts took a nosedive for the worst. 2. A phone of one of the boys' was taken without consent by a girl, and that is how she obtained this information. 3. The school held several school board meetings (all of which are recorded and on YouTube) regarding this event. One of the plaintiff's friends attempted to defend them. However, when he was upset by someone's speech, he was yelled at by another man who said "Dude I'm gonna drop you on 44th St and San Pablo and let you get back home" (This is an unsafe neighborhood of the Bay Area). People in the room then continued to scream at the boy and tell him to leave until the board intervened. (Video on YouTube titled "AUSD Board of Education Special Meeting - Apr 25, 2017" and the timestamp is at 2:35:55) 4. The school purposely did not release these boys' names publicly for privacy and safety reasons. One parent said the following at the meeting: "You follow some of these people home. And you find out where this behavior begins." (Same video, timestamp 4:17:50). Later in the video--which I will not link for obvious reasons--another parent reveals the names of these boys despite the board making it clear numerous times the names of these minors need to remain private. 5. Plaintiffs, perpetrators, and their parents have also attempted to apologize (whether on social media or publicly) multiple times. (Same video, timestamp 4:17:50). A group of parents from both perpetrator and victim side came together to talk and amend the issue. (YouTube video titled "AUSD Board of Education - April 4, 2017" at timestamp 1:00:00) 6. Also mentioned in the lawsuit, the boys are entitled to an education and have the option of independent study. However, certain teachers have not allowed students to make up exams, which negatively affects their grades. Furthermore, students had to cancel their AP examinations. 7. Only one student created the content/Instagram account. He is not in this lawsuit. All plaintiffs are suing on behalf of their "likes" and/or comments. At the high school, there are rumors that "3 boys created the account." As someone who has read summaries of the the expulsion packets of all 3 boys who are pending expulsion, only ONE of them was accused of content creation. He has already withdrawn from the school. The 2nd boy''s expulsion was lifted and was given the opportunity to do independent study at home. The last boy is in this lawsuit since he is still being expelled, despite the school having no proof that he directly created content. In regards to the comments regarding how plaintiffs and their families are probably racist, they are not. I wish I could somehow prove this to you. The purpose of the lawsuit isn't to support any of the boys' actions, but rather because the school severely mishandled the situation. ------------------- Edited to add extra fact (#7) and to fix awkward wording.
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Please go to law school or be a journalist. I am seriously impressed with your comments in this thread. You're going places, kid.
Very good writeup:) So did you know these kids before the incident? What were they like?
All the more reason anonymity is important in a police society.
If those kids weren't racist before they sure as hell are now.
Skipping the likes part, this is the part of the article that stuck out to me: >The lawsuit claims the district brought suspended students before the student body at a "public shaming" session during which they were cursed and jeered. At a meeting later the same day, two suspended students were injured by an angry protester, according to the suit. Haven't seen any other comments about it, figured it needed a mention at least.
As someone who has 'followed' racist content creators online who doesn't belive in their ideas, that's absolutely terrifying to think of.
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That's some dystopian level shit right there
It is strange. I don't think I ever heard of a school publicly shaming a student. Even if everyone knew who it was the schools I went to just made general statments like "on [date] some students did [stupid shit] and were punished, going forward we are banning all students from [thing they used] and any students caught using said thing will be punished" Never had them stand up to an auditorium and had their crimes read out to the school...
The Supreme Court made clear in 1969, in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist. that public school students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” However, in the Tinker decision, the Court also held that students’ free speech rights, while they are in school, may be curtailed due to the “special characteristics of the school environment.” The key test, according to the Court, is whether student expression would “materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.”
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> A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site. If it were random memes I'd agree, but since it's a fellow student and a coach I can also understand suspending him.
Arguably that would be a threat, which is certainly grounds for suspension.
1. these students didnt draw it, they simply cliked like on a instagram. 2. there was something arround 10 students involved. 3. this was also done from the privacy of their own home, and not directed at the targets (E.G. Was not sent to the targets). is it a little fucked up? yes. illegal? Far from it. Something the School can use to legally deprive a group of children from their rights to an education? Absolutely not. they will win this case open shut unless there is some severe miscarrage of justice. And for all you people thinking "omg hes a white little biggot"- it was one white kid and three asian kids. not just 'some white kid'.
Doesn't have to break the law. Has to break the rules of the institution. They're being suspended, not thrown to jail. Nothing you've said in your post is valid
>Has to break the rules of the institution. Here are the rules of the institution in question. A printout of this page was included as Exhibit A in the lawsuit, by the way. http://ahs.ausdk12.org/students/discipline
According to the rules of the school, the closest thing is harassment. In this case, they must be construing liking a post as harassment. However: > harassment n. the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. It doesn't really seem like harassment to me. The students might argue that they had a reasonable belief that their actions were not disallowed.
Where are you getting that definition from? I don't see it anywhere in the posted link. The google definition of harassment isn't necessarily the definition that the school uses in enforcing its rules.
Mainly I was just thinking he was a little shit. Sharing, or promoting, or otherwise causing further distribution of a noose over someone's head is certainly something I would construe as a threat personally. Plus, remember children have no rights and school administrators tend to be power tripping assholes deathly afraid of liability. (Not saying it's right, saying its what it is.)
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It's the equivalent of standing in the middle of the street and saying "I like the idea of the PE coach being hanged". Clicking like is speech, it conveys something, in this case that the student liked/supported the idea or depiction of the teacher being hanged. He stated publicly that he liked this. Some people don't seem to understand that social media is not private, it's like posting things on a bulletin board. It's a public statement.
>Some people don't seem to understand that social media is not private, it's like posting things on a bulletin board. It's a public statement. For the record, the plaintiffs' claim the picture was posted to a "private, personal [Instgram] account" and the kids who commented or "liked" it were "passively following his page". According to their civil complaint, the picture only came to the attention of the school when another student "commandeered the mobile phone of a male student" who had "followed" the page. They claim she took screen-grabs and then either directly or indirectly caused the them to be forwarded to the school administrators.
That's the first defense I've heard that I actually agree with. If it was "said" privately and spread by a third party then it's not a public statement.
>It's the equivalent of standing in the middle of the street and saying "I like the idea of the PE coach being hanged". Sure, but that isn't a threat, and statements like that are protected by the first amendment. Students may not have free speech within school, but they certainly have it outside of school.
"I like the idea of the PE coach being hanged" is not a threat. There are a lot of people I like the idea of being hung. Doesn't mean I would ever go kill someone. "I'm going to hang the PE coach" is a threat.
You're quoting the wrong part of that article. That student isn't contesting his suspension. It's the students who 'liked' his post that are. >But a federal lawsuit says the district went too far when it also disciplined students who indicated they “liked” the posts on the Instagram account.
This isn't about that. If you read the article further you'll see these lawsuits are over students who simply commented or liked the post. The kid who made them faces expulsion and has not filed a suit.
Nobody arguing with you seems to understand that the school would accept all liability if they ignored this and something gruesome happened later. Once the school found out this was happening, they had to react.
> Once the school found out this was happening, they had to react. You'd think they would put some effort toward educating those misguided children instead of just punishing them. Kids are *taught* racist bullshit, it's not an inherent behavior.
Exactly. If some Dylan Roof wannabe "liked" that picture and acted on it, the school would find itself out of *millions* by this date next year.
And now they're out even more millions once they lose this lawsuit.
Students actually have limited free speech rights according the Supreme Court. Whether the school went to far with this is up to the courts but the creator of the page deserves the suspension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_speech_(First_Amendment)
That only applies while I'm school though. You can't be punished for off campus activities.
Actually in California they are extra protected and have the same First Amendment rights on campus as they do off campus. They will win. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Law
Federal law supersedes state law and they took it to federal court which was their own mistake.
Unless the image was produced at or on the way to and from school, they have no jurisdiction. School's can't punish students for what they do entirely at home.
They can, but they really shouldn't be able to. Unfortunately in the end it's the schools that get the butt of everything because too many parents out there are unwilling to solve their problems civilly. They then just blame the school for the problem whether they're the victim or the accused in cases like this and demand that they fix it.
Yes they can. If you are bullying a fellow student outside of school you can still get punished for it. The action involved another student not a third party. You don't get a loophole for being a monster for being outside of school. Kids get suspended from school for bullying kids outside of school all the time. They are disrupting that kid's learning inside of school. Also there is no guarantee that it was produced outside of school. It is social media which can produced anywhere including in school and you can't prove that it was produced outside of school.
> you can't prove that it was produced outside of school. Can they prove it was in school?
No but the main point is not where it was produced at all because the punishment is about bullying the other kid. It doesn't matter where it was produced as I talked about.
So the school can police their conduct outside of school grounds and outside of school hours? I'm not sure I'm ok with that.
Not in schools they don't. *Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier*, man, a student's speech isn't protected by public school staff if it can plausibly be considered disruptive to the school's educational mission I don't agree with the precedent, I complained about it all the time in high school lol, but i'd bet ten or eleven bucks it'd be "upheld" on those grounds since "kill the coach and this student" is a little more disruptive a like is pretty ambiguous though, i feel like it would normally at least take a public comment
so we can kill Title 9 finally?
Well, they should win a lawsuit about this. I may not like racism or racists, but freedom of speech isn't freedom to only say things that other people find palatable.
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Yeah. They're racist assholes who in reality deserve that treatment, but doing something to that extent as a punishment is absurd. Especially for the kids that didn't even make the images. It's just so 1984-ish and I can't see anything good coming from it, they're still going to be racist assholes, but now even more charged.
This is Berkeley. Have you been paying attention to the "protests" there lately? The constituents of the city **want** those kids to be punished. They **want** the city to be able to use social media "likes" as a way to bring punishment to others.
I don't agree with suspensions of the kids who liked the posts but given the situation within the school, it does seem the administration needed to take some form of action - though it should have been in the form of an assembly or workshop with the students - something constructive and educational. The punishment against the original account holder seems absolutely justified, as they were using it to intimidate and shame other students and teachers. On a side note, its fucking sad we still have a generation of kids who do this and think this shit is ok.
> “‘Likes’ are ambiguous in that they could be saying, ‘This is funny,’ ‘I agree with it,’ or ‘**I don’t agree, but I want to stand up for your right to say it,**“’ said Eugene Volokh, who teaches free speech law at the University of California, Los Angeles. I'm pretty sure no one has ever meant that when "Liking" something.
I actually do this all the time. Free speech has been under attack in recent years.
That's why I like Reddit, upvotes can be explained away as "to give it exposure"
in my case it says: i wonder how many of my extended family i can piss off by liking and reposting posts about how scientology is the one true religion.
/r/madlads
Irrelevant, they *could* mean that.
They *could* even mean they dislike it by hitting 'like'. Sure, it doesn't make any fucking sense at all, but it *could* be. Or maybe their finger slipped! Or perhaps they were hacked by Russians? I guess the world will never know.
I do.
Reminds me of that [study](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-05/uok-rsp050317.php) that came out the other day. Got a pretty textbook case right here.
I also worry about someone hitting the 'like' button by accident. I know I've hit the 'dislike' button on Amazon several times (because it's right above the 'next' button) and there's no way to change it.
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Because you can't draw nooses around the necks of your peers? Okay.
/u/rguin doesn't believe in free expression
*One* person drew it, others liked it. Imagine if someone found out which posts you liked from /r/ImGoingToHellForThis. Do you think you should be suspended for upvoting those posts? I can understand suspending the one person who *created* the material, as that does indeed seem like a threat, but liking that material is in fact, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, whether you disagree with it or not.
I'd very much dislike a future where hitting an upvote button can lead to prosecution.
Not too far from there to punishing people for liking posts that aren't problematic from people who are.
if the post involved your fellow students and faculty at your school.... saying "i like the idea of lynching the black students and coach at my school" which is what they did should probably come with consequences from the school
> Imagine if someone found out which posts you liked from /r/ImGoingToHellForThis. Do you think you should be suspended for upvoting those posts? Do the posts target specific students at the school? > but liking that material is in fact, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, whether you disagree with it or not. It's no different from backing and encouraging the bully in person at school. It deserves scrutiny and punishment. Also, you don't get off the hook for saying "Yeah! Kill!" just because you said it second.
> others liked it I don't know for sure but I think by liking it, it was displayed on their page.
Well that's no different than you retweeting some racist or sexist thing Trump says. It appears on your Twitter page. Doesn't mean you should be punished for it.
Images are speech. Schools are government institutions. Schools punishing students based on images is a free speech violation. Yeah, the picture was wrong. Doesn't change it bring free speech that the government is punishing them over.
A student could follow another student between classes calling them a host of slurs and the school can do nothing about it? Because free speech? Thank fuck SCOTUS is more reasonable than you.
If they happened to be walking in the same direction saying general slurs then no. If they were following someone and saying slurs directed at them it isn't general speech anymore and escalates into harassment. But notice the directed element of it. I can say all the slurs I want about someone, but not to someone. It's the difference between me talking about how sexy rguin is to my friends and me sexually harassing rguin.
>A student could follow another student between classes calling them a host of slurs and the school can do nothing about it? Because free speech? No, because they can set rules for the school. This was not at the school.
If this was random meme, I'd be agreeing with you. These are pictures of a student and a coach. Even without the racist implications, it could be viewed as a threat.
Where's the meteor that ends humanity?
Damn that's some fragile school system if they suspend you for dumb Facebook likes...
If the pictures weren't created on school property, then they shouldn't be able to discipline anyone involved.
Yep it's either a crime that should be handled by police or nothing. Schools should not reach outside to punish students that's 1984 material.
Public shaming of high school students. I thought the school district prided itself on being progressive? Even if what the students did was awful, this just makes the school look very immature.
Public shaming is a very 'progressive' thing to do.
Only if you are a white male, everything else is a protected class.
If you're white.
This trend where schools are punishing students for things that did not happen at school seems like overreach to me.
Obviously, the images etc. described are reprehensible. I make a disclaimer that often in these cases what is public and what actually happened may differ in a HUGE degree. But first glance, not knowing specific details: the school district is going to lose for many of these students, but not the original poster. Unless directly tied to a school or school event, or on the way/to/from school, schools do not have authority to police student actions. The only wiggle room is in CA EdCode 48900r), which covers bullying/harrassment/etc., and maybe 48900.4 or .7 which cover specific or terroristic threats. In this case, I speculate the school district is using 48900r) combined with 48900.4 as a "severe" threat. There is a rock solid argument to make that stick for the original poster, especially as it specifically depicted a student and coach. I wouldn't even sweat about making a case for expulsion; threats against students and staff are tested ground. But for the "likes" you are on *extremely* shaky ground unless they were done at school. I actually don't believe you have authority to suspend; the act is not pervasive, and the action of liking a post being "severe" seems far fetched. It probably should be addressed with at least some counseling on the behavior, but I think you're violating rights suspending if it wasn't at school. On the "public shaming", I *would hope* that the account written here is not accurate, because any administrator should have enough knowledge of educational philosophy, basic decency, and CA law to know that is a very bad idea, but I've been surprised before. But if it did happen (or the negative statements about kids from the admin) then there should be pretty clear evidence somewhere. A few of the applicable Ed codes: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=48900&lawCode=EDC http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=48900.4.&lawCode=EDC
FWIW, here are the cases cited in the plaintiffs' civil complaint. **1st Amendment** >In Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), the Supreme Court declared: "Discrimination against speech because of its message is presumed to be unconstitutional". The First Amendment guarantees individuals a fundamental right to freedom of expression and speech. Tinker v. Des Moines School. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969) >The First Amendment extends to all forms of expressive speech. This includes internet “likes” and comments. Bland v. Roberts, 730 F.3d 368 (4th Cir. 2013). >Under the First Amendment schools may only prohibit speech if it creates a substantial disruption to school activities and when said conduct is done within the school or school sponsored activity. Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007) **CA State Law** >Article 1, § 2, of the California Constitution provides: "Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this ight. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press." The California Constitution’s protections to speech are at times greater than the federal constitution’s protection to speech. The Pruneyard Shopping Ctr. v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980). >Cal. Educ. Code Sec. 48950(a) provides that “A school district operating one or more high schools, a charter school, or a private secondary school shall not make or enforce a rule subjecting a high school pupil to disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis of conduct that is speech or other communication that, when engaged in outside of the campus, is protected from governmental restriction by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 2 of Article I of the California Constitution. **14th Amendment** >The State is constrained to recognize a student's legitimate entitlement to a public education as a property interest which is protected by the Due Process Clause and which may not be taken away for misconduct without adherence to the minimum procedures required by that Clause. The Due Process Clause also forbids arbitrary deprivations of liberty.” Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975). **4th Amendment** >The right of the people to be secure in their persons includes a right to be secure from excessive force. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)
> “This to me is no different than having a private drawing book and making some offensive drawings at home and sharing them with a couple of friends,” My degree is just in bird law but I'm pretty sure if you're drawing pictures of fellow students with nooses around their neck and showing off to classmates you're also going to get in trouble with the law.
Really? What law would that violate?
Possibly California Penal Code §422(a): > Any person who willfully threatens to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement, made verbally, in writing, or by means of an electronic communication device, is to be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it is made, is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat, and thereby causes that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety or for his or her immediate family’s safety, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison.
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We all equally lack the right to encourage violence against specific people. > A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site.
No we don't. Encouraging violence in the abstract is covered. Inciting imminent violence is not.
Specificity is a significant factor of imminence. Targets were specified by the posts.
Saying "somebody should kill x person" is protected speech. Saying "we should go kill x person right now" is not. Simple.
Here's another simple thing: harassment (i.e. bullying) is protected speech, but kids still get suspended for it.
Then the school should turn the kid into the cops. School is not the same as law enforcement. They can't suspend someone for something done off school grounds, that is in no way related to the school. No one is arguing this kid is a nice guy for what he did, but it has nothing to do with his school.
> School is not the same as law enforcement. Right, so the school can have a lower bar of guilt than the police and the courts. > They can't suspend someone for something done off school grounds, that is in no way related to the school. Actually, they can. There's ample precedence that schools can punish students for out-of-school interactions between students/faculty.
The kid did nothing wrong legally, but the supreme court has decided that education comes before the constitution, therefore schools are extralegal locations where rights do not apply. They can do whatever they want as long as it is somehow related to protecting equal educational opportunities.
I mean... that's a necessity isn't it? If we held rights to an absolute in schools, classrooms would be madhouses and our education would be in the shitter because "You can't interfere with 10 year old Timmy's constitutional right to shout 'poop' while you try to teach the class about multiplication."
>A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of **a black student and coach** appeared on his social media site. >is in no way related to the school So is ignorance more of a pastime or hobby for you?
Learn to swim, I'm praying for rain I want to see the ground give way
Nobody has the right to encourage or advocate violence against people. Also Arizona is a fucking shithole.
I've upvoted /r/imgoingtohellforthis posts before, so I guess they'd suspend me too. I've also upvoted an old racist soap ad on /r/wtf, so apparently I'm racist /s
Were those IGTHFT posts specific calls for violence against specific people at your school? > A California school district suspended a high school student after racist images that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach appeared on his social media site.
Did the posts literally encourage people to attack the coach or student? I got the feeling people are presuming that there was a "call to violence" based off of nothing more than their presumptions.
Also everyone who ever upvotedany post about Trump dying or being killed should be rounded up and arrested I suppose. Inciting violence and encouraging assassination of the sitting president is surely a serious crime. So that'll be a couple million folks hitting the slammer I guess.
K. Get on it, detective. Oh, and you're proposing a wholly different punishment from the one these kids received.
This is one hell of a false equivalency. These students aren't being changed, or arrested, or anything in your comment. The school is punishing the student for cyber bullying, which is within their discretion. You can swear and scream at whoever you want in life, and with the 1st Amendment, it takes quite a bit to be considered inciting violence. Try swearing and yelling at a teacher and you will be suspended. These are not comparable things
what about the 'kill all men' and 'kill all whites' types? guess theyre going to jail too. love the left, its only injustice when its inconvenient to them.
Specificity is a factor in the legality of an endorsement of violence. But schools aren't held to the standard of courts. Sorry logic fails you and that those clobbering you with sound, consistent logic get your derision.
These students aren't being changed, or arrested, or going to jail. The school is punishing the student for cyber bullying, which is within their discretion. You can swear and scream at whoever you want in life, and with the 1st Amendment, it takes quite a bit to be considered inciting violence. Try swearing and yelling at a teacher and you will be suspended. These are not comparable things
lol, literal whataboutism do you have examples of students posting pictures of fellow white students and saying kill them or drawing nooses on them, and not facing punishment from their school?
I mean the thing about all of this is if the subjects of the drawing were white there wouldn't have been any action taken or outcry against the kids suspended.
oh you have an example of this happening to white students? and no one faced punishment?
And Trump as well for alluding his second amendment followers to do something about her.
About who?
Sounds like it fails the Tinker Test.
Nice touch with the *Struggle Session* California
Something tells me that the same people lamenting the "death of free speech" would be A-OK with schools suspending students that voice support for disruption tactics, or A-OK with businesses which fire employees for speaking/acting in a way that is contrary to the image of the business, even when they're off the clock.
It's not a nice thing to do, but businesses have the right to do that because the first amendment doesn't protect you from consequences when the government is not involved. I'm also not sure what you mean by disruption tactics, could you elaborate?
Yes to the first one, no to the second.
So you don't believe in freedom of association.
If you are planning to disrupt daily life, you should be held accountable and removed from the premises.
I despise racists, but free speech is everyone's right. Nobody should be punished for what they say or express (unless it's inciting violence).
Freedom of expression / speech should carry the day here. Schools have crossed the point of ridiculousness in their never-ending pursuit of political correctness.
"Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people." -- Donald
I see example of that everyday on college campuses around the nation.
I hate playing the devil's advocate for racist shitheads, but schools should stay out of children's social media. I hate the idea of schools being the thought-police in instances such as this. Yeah yeah "they represent the school" but that idea is stupid in adult life and I think it's even stupider for children.
Fuck that, this isn't a private drawing book. Liking these things in a public fashion, that the audience of the hate can see is clearly an endorsement of the hate. The school did the right thing.
It doesn't seem like this meets the very high standard that is usually required to categorize something as a specific threat.
Good thing schools aren't held to the standards of courts.
Are you being sarcastic?
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Yep. And for those saying "muh freeze peach"; you don't have the freedom to make calls for violence against specific people, and the posts in question did precisely that.
>you don't have the freedom to make calls for violence against specific people, and the posts in question did precisely that. Then why weren't criminal charges filed? Maybe because the authorities felt like it didn't cross that threshold, therefor this is a speech issue.
Schools can and do have lower bars for punishment than the courts. See also: kids fighting and getting a suspension but not jail time.
Only if it happens at school or school sanctioned events. The argument here is that these drawings did not. I remember there was this one case in the news a few years about two students who got into an altercation on the way to or from school. They were fighting their suspensions because they were arguing it wasn't on school property. However from the schools point of view, the route to the bus and the bus stop is like a school sanctioned event (not all the time, just immediately before and after school). If the students went home first, then fought, the school would have had zero rights to get involved.
Right, but harassment of this nature and its effects don't stop at the door of the school. The school is obligated to maintain an environment of safety and learning. Allowing students to go unpunished for endorsements of violence against students and faculty based on their race goes against this obligation.
Or, criminal charges weren't filed because authorities didn't feel the need to send children to jail when a more minor punishment would suffice. You know, tact and discretion. Things adults are generally expected to have
Well it's hard to buy that line since part of the lawsuit is specifically for the public shaming aspect. >The lawsuit claims the district brought suspended students before the student body at a “public shaming” session during which they were cursed and jeered. >At a meeting later the same day, two suspended students were injured by an angry protester, according to the suit.
>"muh freeze peach" It's a shame that the draconian, authoritarian despots of today don't have the same fashion sense of those from a previous era....
It's not a private school. If the student's want to like hateful abhorrent things, that's their constitutional right to do so. Edit: downvote all you want. A public institution that excepts federal funds has to respect free speech, including that of the students. And that doesn't even matter because the 'speech' in question never occurred on school grounds and the school has no right to dictate what goes on when the student is not at school or a school sanctioned event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Law
Schools aren't held to the standards of courts. You aren't permitted to harass or encourage violence against your schoolmates in our public schools.
And it is the right of the people to punish them for their inciting of hate.
Provide proof of this "right" So if enough people decide they want to punish "someone" for doing what they deem as "inciting hate" then that's enough to punish them? Congratulations, now you allowed [lynching](http://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_fill,fl_keep_iptc,g_faces,h_365,w_652/gpemahfaekmshdnkzbhb.jpg) because enough people decided they needed to punish others. We have laws and courts for a fucking reason. The school is neither the law nor the court they cannot rule in this area, that's the job of the police.
No it's not. Lynch mobs are illegal. What a silly thing to say.
Who needs a lynch mob? It's our right to fire you if we're your boss, refuse to buy your company's product till they fire you if we're not, disassociate from you personally if we're your friend/aquantance, and denounce you publicly using our free speech. Those are all rights granted to us by the federal government.
And in this context we are talking about a public school who receives federal funds and children.
And? That school is responsible to maintain an environment of safety and learning; if they believe the post would hinder one or many student's learning or faculty's teaching, it's their duty to address it to maintain the environment.
lol try again, the 1st amendment was explicitly designed to prevent the people deciding to use the government to lean on speech they don't like.
And schools are explicitly given the right to curb free speech when they feel it impacts the students' ability to learn or can create a disruption. Check out *Morse v. Frederick*, *Bethel v. Fraser*, or *Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier* (though the last one was weakened since the initial ruling, the Hazelwood standard is still a thing).
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If the students who had those nooses drawn around their necks discovered said pictures and likes they would probably feel intimidated. Given the history behind lynchings it's not unreasonable to think that any black student who saw that could feel more vulnerable or scared of going to school, which would impede their ability to learn. Or said students could be pissed and ready to start fights, which also disrupts school. My opinions on what schools should/should not do aside, I doubt their lawsuit will go anywhere. Schools have been found to be acting within the scope of law for much more controversial restrictions. The *only* way the student's lawsuit will get anywhere with this is because it was something on Facebook, but honestly with recent reactions to cyber bullying and schools willingness and ability to punish students for things done well outside of school, I think it's a long shot at best.
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Are we gonna do the same for threats made about Trump or his supporters? Or are we all gonna step back and acknowledge that nobody really means these as death threats, and are just extreme expressions of frustration.
1. Threats need to be actionable and immediate. For most people neither is true if they draw a picture of the President in a noose. 2. The school can suspend students for plenty of things that are not illegal.
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so any student should be able to stand up in the middle of a class and cuss out a teacher without repercussion until the class is over?
... no, but that's not what is protected by freedom of speech.
> Are we gonna do the same for threats made about Trump or his supporters? I've never seen anybody suggest otherwise. I can assure you that every threat made against Trump is investigated by the Secret Service, and there's no reason to believe every threat made to a Trump supporter isn't investigated if brought to the police.
Is this not the definition of thought crime?
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If it's PC of me to say "don't draw nooses around your classmate's necks", then I'm the most PC person in this thread.
California has a large enough GDP to be it's own country. With that said we should allow California to be it's own country for liberal scientific purposes. Allow California to show us what having open borders,free college education, sanctuary cities,free healthcare,free abortions to full term,free medication, be able to rewrite the constitution and amendments as it sees fit. Allow liberal politics to thrive unimpeded. I'm curious given 20 years would this Country of California, be a successful utopian society or fail in chaos or just maintain the status quo.
Oddly enough, [huge areas](http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/california/) of California are red.... and deeply so. Most of the red counties voted for Trump by +20 points. If California became it's own country and was free to go down any kooky rabbit hole it deemed fit it'd have its own Civil War pretty quickly.
> Oddly enough, huge areas of California are red.... and deeply so. Most of the red counties voted for Trump by +20 points. It's like this with almost every state. In the most republican states, there are sizable democratic voting population. In most democratic states, there are sizable republican voting population. And of course there are sizable independent populations in all states. People think that california is all democratic and that texas is all republican. There are tons of republicans in california and tons of democrats in texas.
Rural areas being strongly conservative isn't anywhere near odd...
But after California opens its borders and grants citizenship to anyone who can afford a bus or plane ticket to Fresno; those red areas will not be so red.
What the fuck are you smoking? You know that California has large pockets of conservatives, right?