Scenerio: This suspension in the Right?

[EUR_Zaitsev]

Today, 3 of my friends at my school got suspended for 10 days of out of school suspension and possible expulsion. Sounds like they got in a fight or cussed out a teacher correct? They, OUT OF SCHOOL, had made a website about a girl they were at odds with. That girl printed out the site and brought it to school. The administration got a hold of it and then took action. It is true there are laws against slandering but the school is not the court system. Furthermore the website had no threats on it.

Once I had a web site that said our school DARE program was stupid and a waste of time and it was joking about drugs, in the 5th grade but I wasnt even called to the office teachers just dropped comments about it here and there and that was it.

Some may say its school policy dicision but the only Zero Tolerence things of 10 days OSS are Possesion of Weapon, Drugs, or firecrackers.

In our student hand book verbal abuse is In School Suspension and or police and parent notified. However that also goes with threat so police is out of the question. How can this happen? Is it fair?

Is it any different if I cursed excessively out of school and somebody tape recorded it, and brought it in the next day and I got a referal? Thats obscene!

IS THIS FAIR?

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Zaitsev, in a word.  Yes.  I'd make a bunch of assumptions, but I'd bet most of them would be true.  Since this involved kids at your school, I'd be willing to bet that word was spread at school about it (or how would the subject have found it).  School most likely was involved in many ways.  

You'll probably find a rule in your handbook regarding harassment.

Look at it this way.  If a kid from school was pissed at you, followed you off school grounds, and beat the piss out of you, he (or she) would be suspended at most schools I know of.  If your school is private, it's even more likely (but I doubt that based on the shitty history class you mentioned).

[alaric]

Okay, time for your daily dose of cynicism:

It doesn't matter who is right. In high school there is no right and no wrong. There is only the totalitarian dictatorship of the administration. They decide what is right and wrong. Nothing you can do will ever change this. You don't have the power. Give up.

Or, we could do as we want to do in Iraq and use the army to free the oppressed high schoolers of America! </sarcasm>

[tasty]

Sounds like your friends are pretty immature for making that website. I do think that schools overstep their boundaries though trying to interfere in people's business. Just to put in my two cents, if someone kicks zaitsev's ass outside of school I don't think the school should do a damn thing about it. A lot of cruel things happen in the world but that doesn't make them a school's responsibility. Of course school is going to be involved in most things in a student's life, as it is their main location for fraternizing and networking. But if it happens outside of school, the school shouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. The school is trying to limit the free speech of these students outside of school because they don't like the content. It's still a legal gray area if the school can limit the free speech of students inside a school, so I think that even if this is "legal" under the school's rules that a simple appeal under a lawyer could probably get the school in some hot water.

However, their parents are probably more interested in teaching them a lesson about being nice than about free speech, so I doubt it will ever happen.

[The Ghost of Bondo]

Outside of school property is also outside school policy jurisdiction.  Like tasty said, an assault that occurs off school property, even if it is between members of the school and because of something that started at school, is a legal issue for the city/county police, not the school administrators.

In this case it is talking about a website.  First off, if their page was hosted by the school, it would be their business, if it isn't in any way involving school property, it isn't.  If the page violated the law in some way or violated TOS of the ISP.  Then the local police or ISP would have reason to act, not the school.

I'm not sure about laws, certainly there is free speech implications but even in normal situations, posting slanderous material on a website while not usually criminally punishable, would be subject to a civil suit.

Anyway, I do think the school is theoretically in the wrong in that I don't think they should have the right to suspend based on things not involving school property.  However as they do have the legal right to do so, it isn't something your friends can really protest.  I'm sure cases like this have been challanged by parents before and had the school's right to do this supported in court, even if it is unconstitutional.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Tasty, if they used a school computer to pull up the web site, or to send an e-mail with the URL even, or a hundred other things, the school can prove harassment at school, and is then involved.  

And personally, I think it's better for school to be involved then the police in most cases.  And in the case of a fight, they could be.  With the web site, it would depend on local laws about harassment and the actual content of the site.  Or would you rather see the parents of the girl file suit in court for slander, mental anguish, etc?  

[EUR_Zaitsev]

The page was not pulled up at the school whatsoever. Schools cannot claim jurisdiction of the WWW, any key facts you guys need to base a desicion. I think its none of the schools damn business. If anything the offended is in trouble for our rule of "showing or distributing obscene materials" I mean this is obscene and she brought it in to show friends NOT admins originally

[tasty]

bucc you are right, if they were involved with the site at all while at school, the school could prove it. however i'm assuming they weren't stupid enough to do it. i don't like the school getting overinvolved in students lives because i always found most school administrators to be intolerable and power-hungry. as far as i'm concerned the girls parents can sue the kids for libel, mental anguish, whatever. that would teach them a better lesson, cuz you can be damn sure they won't fuck around like this when their parents get publicly humiliated.

just a side note, i think that a lawsuit over this would be frivolous. people that sue over mental anguish are usually huge pussies who need to find a better way to deal with their problems.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Zaitsev, how do you know that nobody at the school ever hit that site?  And the school would just have to show in it's logs that someone had used that URL on a school computer.  Even if it was in an e-mail.  Remember, e-mail is not a protected communication, and is often logged.  Yes, spyware can even log it using yahoo or other webmail, if the school uses it.  And you wont know unless they tell you.  Even if they just posted the URL on a bulliten board in the school, it's then in their domain.

Tasty, I don't know local laws there, but harassment is criminal here, and, depending on content, the police could go that route (consider it harassment).  All depends on how bad it really was.

But myself, I'm for the schools getting involved.  If the administrator goes overboard, the parents can always go over their head and get the suspension lifted.  It happens all the time.  With my own parents, I'd have gotten a much bigger ass whoopin for the suspension.  If someone filed a suit against my father, he would have gotten more pissed at them then at me.  Honest truth.  

[EUR_Zaitsev]

The site was made Monday, the 17th which was a day off due to snow. I know because I then walked with these friends to another friends house and they were explaining about it.  We did not get in  school again until that Friday which all computers believe it or not were crashed. Yesterday is when the situation came out. Aside from me and a few friends in my class no kids know the internet password and you can only log on to the school webpagethrough our student ID. Furthermore, to limit the liklihood of it Only 5 people knew the exact addy and they are not stupid enough to sign on at school, I asked all 3 and they said they did not. The schools reason for Jurisdiction was the copy being brought in or so they say however in no way is it The 3's fault that she decided to bring it in.

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Zaitsev, if only you and the guys knew the address, how did she get it?

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

He is just trying to protect his friends. But the bottom line is that if your friends were stupid enough to make a public website about someone, then they deserve whatever is coming to them.

It is one thing to talk about her behind her back, but it is another to slander (I assume) in a public area such as a website. As someone said above, your friends are lucky they aren't getting sued or arrested (harassment is a misdemeanor).

As for the school...they are just covering their backs because htey probably dont want to get sued in the event that a lawsuit happens. By suspending your friends, they are saying that they do not condone any such behavior to students that attend the school, and are thus covering their own ass.

[bronto]

If no threats were made, and none of it pertained to school in any way whatsoever, the school should mind their own business. Making an offensive website about her is illegal, though, and should be dealt with by the authorities. Maybe the school is mistaken about when and where the site was created, because i think they would know what is out of their jurisdiction. I threatened a couple people. The first time, i did it through a little messenger thing on the computers in school as a kind of joke, and they suspended me. The second time i said it to someone and their parents told the school and the cops, both of which did nothing at all about it. If i was those three, i would rather be ejected from school and flogged with dead rodents then go to court. Court is the most humiliating and degrading place in the world.

[tasty]

Haha bucc, maybe rapid should sue you for your slanderous anti-rapid site, you misdemeanor-committing rebel!

[bronto]

Rapid isn't his real name, so Bucc could just say the rapid he made his website about is his imaginary friend.

[EUR_Zaitsev]

BUcc, i t was on an aim profile and she read the addy

and btw outcome reduced to 3 days in school suspension I think ill check

[jn.loudnotes]

Schools are always screwing up - they have their own Murphy's law - if a school can do something to get in the way of education, it will.

But aside from that, someone explain to me the whole idea of Out of School suspension.  Excepting cases where a person could be shown to be dangerous to other people (fighting, bringing a weapon, etc) how is sending someone out of school a good idea?  Isn't it better to keep them IN class??  Besides, the people who are most likely to be ones getting suspended aren't people with the study habits necessary to have any chance of catching up on the missed school work.

So basically, the message is, if you've done something wrong (even non-violent) you don't deserve to be taught.  How exactly does that further your education?

Counterpoint:  This is not analogous to prison, where offenders are rehabilitated (in theory at least).  Out of school, the student has nothing to do, unless they have good parents.  And if they have good parents, they aren't as likely to have done something badly wrong in the first place.

Seems like a vicious cycle.

[†FiRE Infection]

Zait, that really sucks and in my opinion is totally unfair.  But sometimes you come across these crazy, lying, ugly loser bitches in life.  If I were in your friend's position I would feel totally horrible and feel that I was being mistreated by the school.  Now, since this issue was brought into school the school can decide to act like idiots and do what they've done.  Your friends should have thought before they acted though, because you don't always know who you're dealing with and the bullshit they will pull.  Now, what about saying that they didn't make the site? Or saying they don't have computers/knowledge of making a webpage.  Or do they have there names on it or something?  If they do, that was pretty stupid, even if they are being wronged by the school.  Don't put yourself in a position to start trouble and it won't happen, now they have to pay the consequences even if it is bullshit.

[EUR_Zaitsev]

They did have thier names in it because none of them knew it could come back to haunt them in school (which is shouldnt) and I told them I would argue with th the administration if I were them but they feel lucky because they got a reduced punishment but I still think it should be none at all. Your correct tasty in that out of school suspension and even in school suspension  takes you out of the learning envirnment and you just fall behind. Ive talked my way out of a few problems on that basis alone.

[abe*]

zaitzev,

.....and making websites that make fun of your classmates contibutes to a healthy learning environment?

any way you look at it, what they did was stupid and they have to learn how to deal with the consequences. im pretty sure your buddies knew that there could be trouble before they made the website. if they didnt, they are dumbasses and deserve what they got.

that being said, suspending these kids from school is maybe a bit excessive. if i were an administrator at your school, id have these kids teach classes on html and making websites as a 'punishment'......