So when are WAR CRIMINAL NATIONS and WAR-PROMOTING, MSM LIARS going to be held accountable?
"Judge backs student’s First Amendment rights; Cruel remarks online are not unconstitutional" by Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times | December 14, 2009
LOS ANGELES - Amid rising concerns over cyber-bullying, and even calls for criminalization, some courts, parents, and free speech advocates are pushing back - students, they say, have a First Amendment right to be nasty in cyberspace.
Hey, it is ONLY WORDS!
Sticks and stones?
“To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul [of the law],’’ US District judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote in a 60-page opinion.
“The court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young persons are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments,’’ he wrote.
It's a sad state of affairs, but true.
What is wrong with your kids, AmeriKa?
Schools’ ability to limit student speech is an age-old issue that has been repeatedly tried and tested in the courts, from armbands protesting the Vietnam war to banners promoting marijuana use. But with teens’ social lives moving increasingly to cyberspace, where what previously might have been a private bickering is reproduced, publicized and documented for all to see, school officials find themselves on unfamiliar grounds in dealing with e-mails, instant messages, profile pages, videos, and the like that may result in hurt feelings or something more serious.
Just wondering why you need an FBI Facebook, kiddo.
Free-speech advocates said the notoriety of highly publicized cases, such as the Missouri girl who committed suicide after a mean-spirited MySpace message, have led to schools overreacting and excessively cracking down on student expression when it comes to the Internet.
They always do.
“It’s better to have a lawsuit and lose some money than have a situation where a student commits suicide,’’ said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar and law professor at the UCLA who has criticized a bill in Congress that would make cyber bullying punishable by as long as two years in prison. “People don’t appreciate how much the First Amendment protects not only political and ideological speech, but also personal nastiness and chatter. . . . If all cruel teasing led to suicide, the human race would be extinct,’’ Volokh said.
And here I am!
The murkiness of this area of law and educational policy has led to legal challenges across the country over school officials’ restriction or discipline of student speech....
Yeah, taxpayers have loads of cash to shell out for unnecessary court cases, sigh.
--more--"
