Tech Dirt – by Mike MasnickWay back in 2005, we wrote a story about a ridiculous situation in which a group of students were suspended after filming an angry teacher go on a bit of a tirade, screaming at students and yanking the chair out from under one of them. Rather than discipline the teacher, the school suspended the students. This was way back before it was that common for everyone to have phones with cameras in them (back when people still called them “cameraphones” and mocked them) and before social media made it so easy to widely distribute such images and videos. You’d think, given nearly a decade of time to get used to the concept that we wouldn’t see a similar story pop up… but that’s not the case apparently.
10 students in California have been suspended from their high school for posting, sharing or commenting on an image that appears to be their principal putting a student into a choke hold:
Principal Todd Whitmire said it wasn’t the posting of the photo that got the suspended students in trouble but rather the comments that were added to the photo, which he said amounts to cyberbullying through a social network. The two students who fought were also suspended earlier this week for their actions as called for under the state education code.
“It was the reposting, the retweeting, and keeping it alive and assigning negative comments to it and creating a hostile environment” for the girl, he said Wednesday of the posts that followed Friday’s on-campus fight.
This is shameful. It seems abundantly clear that the school is trying to stifle free expression and free speech — and they flat out admit that fact, but hide behind the claim that it’s “cyberbullying.” Cyberbullying of who? The principal? Really? If you’re going to be an administrator in a public high school, you need to have a slightly thicker skin than to suspend students for saying some mean things about a photo of you.
…I would support a 100% walk-out of every student in that school..for as long as it takes to have the ten students records cleared and to have this bully’s record indicate he was fired for being an idiot..and a fascist…as far as to whether he was legitimately choking the girl..who knows? But…if he was legitimately choking the girl…why would he care that it was online…now, if he wanted to chill the free expression rights of all involved..well I guess he’d do just what he did…suspend everyone….I say fire his ass for poor judgment and decision making…
Regards,
RJ O’Guillory
Author-
Webster Groves – The Life of an Insane Family
Fascist schools, government and corporate world. Well we get the educational system we allow to metastasize in our communities. Schools are trying to take too much control away from parents and they need to send a clear cease and desist message. Now
At one point or another you have to realize a school can become a war zone. Parents send their little 6ft.+ monsters to school and the staff have to quell everything under the sun. Doesn’t every ambulance chaser have a neck brace doctor or 3 or 4? This isn’t having a fishing tackle box in your car or your locker for show and tell. This is most likely “Shut up and knock it off.”
Having a personal experience in an incident of this kind, I must emphasize that you must consider all evidence before condemning any involved party.