LibelSpace
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The popular web site MySpace is prompting legal battles in Florida and around the country.
A Sarasota teacher is suing a high school student who posted demeaning sexual comments alongside her picture. The school suspended the boy, but the teacher said she doesn’t think the punishment was harsh enough.
Internet experts say lawsuits surrounding sites like MySpace will likely continue until a federal court rules on the issue. The American Civil Liberties Union says schools have no legal authority to monitor what students do on their home computers.
But school administrators argue they have the right to take disciplinary action when blogs spillover onto school grounds.
So who do you side with the ACLU or the school? Or should cases like this be considered libel?
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POSTED IN: School
1 opinion for LibelSpace
Jeff
Apr 26, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Its not ACLU v School, its School v Constitution.
Why is it that teachers these days think themselves to be untouchable from the treatment students have always given them?
Of course she is unhappy, she’s human, but she isnt exempt from the parodies that simply WILL arise by nature of her position of a person in power.
Kids have always soaped windows, made slanderous and libelous comments about teachers, written fantasies about the hottest substitute, etc.
Only nowadays tho, soaping windows will bring charges of after hours tresspassing and vandalization, CHILDREN are sued for slander and libel, and supposing the school somehow finds the written fantasy, the child is suspended and charged with counts of stalking, or simply sent into counciling.
The problems I’m seeing here aren’t kids, but adults’ distorted perceptions brought on by a “Fox news” kind of media frenzied world.
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