High School Student Expelled for Cursing in Tweet

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wild9

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Did the school expel him because he allegedly swore on 'their' computer, or because he allegedly swore on 'a' computer?
 

rosen380

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Not that I agree with the punishment or anything, but how is it invasion of privacy for a school to 'monitor' information entered on their network or published publicly?
 

SkateZilla

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they wonder why students are failing.......................

they find every excuse to expel them..

seriously, expelling a student for what he said on twitter?,
The tweet had no bearing on his school, or his studies, the school should not be tracking tweets anyway, its a waste of resources and mis appropriation of security.

now if he had threatened a student or someone at the school, its a different story.

this is just dumb.
 

halcyon

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This seems like a case of adults not catching on or catching up with contemporary social circles. Its dangerous how this kind of big-brotherism goes unchecked...especially in this day and age.
 

freggo

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This is certainly not the School's business unless it was 'tweeted' while in class maybe.

I'd love to have a chance to dig thru the principal's hard drive and see what my Undelete utilities can dig up... :)
 

bigdragon

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This is why I hate public schools. They have the most ridiculous internet policies. They claim to own everything you do on or off campus. They do not recognize any boundaries, and they enforce overbearing rules that do far more harm than good on students they want.

Back when I was in high school I was suspended and could have been expelled because I was working on a website that was tied to my graduation project at the end of an Office class. I had been allowed to work on it the previous day and thought there was no problem since it was school-related and I was multiple lessons ahead of the rest of the class. Instead I got sent home and there was this whole ridiculous investigation. Then the administrators kept saying their "hands were tied" after admitting how ridiculous all this was. I caught one of their star class president favorites doing the same thing one day at the end of class without any action against them. To this day I will not visit that school, give them any money, support any of their groups or sports, do anything relating to my class, and moved out of their tax district.

This country is going backwards when it comes to the internet. Today we allow schools to kick people out of class based on what they put on Twitter or Facebook in the evenings from home. Today we are forced to share social networking passwords with entities that have no business logging into our own accounts. Today we have organizations that claim ownership over everything someone does online at all times. Today we allow patents on a couple lines of code to soak up hundreds of thousands of dollars from website operators.

I'd like to see someone honestly justify how suspending me based on working on a graduation project taught me a positive lesson. Same goes for this latest Twitter debacle. How does this teach the kid a positive life lesson?
 

southernshark

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I am so glad that I left America and its prison planet mentality behind. My kids will attend a private school in another country. Enjoy the fruits of American socialism. Suck it down.
 

marraco

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Next student will be expelled for murdering 6749 people on Counter Strike, pissing on Nuke Nukem, and gay marriage on Skyrim.

All the school authorities should face court for invasion on private lifes. This is harassment, and they should get a restriction order from the court.
 

f-14

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indiana is it's own breed of rebel heretic rednecks, they have not fully ratified the constitution of the united states and presume that their state laws no matter how unconstitutional trump the laws of the united states of america.
indiana does alot of asinine things legally that are not legal in america so anything that happens in indiana doesn't surprise me, at times i consider them the puritan state when it comes to their law, and yes they do have real witch hunts still in indiana.
 

Marcus52

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[citation][nom]awood28211[/nom]Schools have become jails for children. As a father I've noticed the school is more worried about discipline that about education. It's all about control. Blanket policies are not effective. They do not allow children to be children and children will make mistakes. If the known bully gets in a fight he should be more severely punished that the quiet kid who was the victim of the bully's taunting. Schools are horrible institutions.[/citation]

I agree with most of what you said, but the "let children be children" concept is often carried too far these days.

It is appropriate to make allowances for a person's age; a judge is unlikely to penalize a person convicted of a crime if he is a minor as much as he might an adult, and I think that's good policy. I also think expunging records of minors can be a good thing. However, letting kids off without any disciple at all when they do something wrong is sending the wrong message.

I'm not applying the above to this case though. A tweet is essentially a private communication, though it may be, and often is, published by the receiver. A school has no business policing tweets. (I would say there could be an exception in that if the tweet was sent to a school official, they might have a right to discipline the child.)

No one would allow a school to monitor personal phone calls, no matter how many people were added into the conversation. We all know that's wrong. The same principle applies here. We have the additional reason that a school has no business monitoring anyone's activity outside of their school (unless, of course, it is a private school and the parent has agreed to it).

On top of all that, this "4-letter" word has no meaning related to racism or other forms of prejudice; it's just a word used to express strong emotion (if not just used as slang in place of feces, or a more common word used for the like). Getting all upset over this word is wrong, itself. In fact, if you want it to lose it's power, then the best thing you can do is choose to not be offended by it.
 

lamorpa

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Think of all the high school student who had never heard this vulgar word, but now have, and might use it in the future. Oh, wait a minute...
 

carcharocles_theory

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There was a recently a case in my area where a pair of students were expelled because of someone else said on their blog. The school is standing their ground because it was a racial slur, but again it wasn't them that said it. It doesn't help their case though that the blog was private and run from the students' home. The parents were smart and got lawyers involved.

Schools these days care way too much about policing their students. They don't care enough about having said students succeed. What amazes me is that 50 years or so ago, a pair of students were expelled for wearing a wrist band with a peace insignia, and the courts declared that it violated free speech. Now? Most schools require a uniform specifically because they want to crush free speech, and no one gives a d***.
 
G

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Power corrupts. This has nothing to do with the public school system or any hierarchy of establishment. This was the work of a lone individual in a position of power, rarely able to use it, and finding an excuse to exploit it for their own sick personal reasons. Some people just enjoy the thrill and excitement over punishing someone no matter how unjust. The principal saw an opportunity to fill a void in his otherwise boring mundane life and took it. He simply wanted to make someone suffer. Hopefully the backlash will serve as a form of karma and he'll feel exactly what he's putting this student through.
 

Marcus52

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[citation][nom]southernshark[/nom]I am so glad that I left America and its prison planet mentality behind. My kids will attend a private school in another country. Enjoy the fruits of American socialism. Suck it down.[/citation]

Indicting all of America because of ridiculous actions like this principal took is not only bigoted prejudice against Americans, it is a stupid denial of the facts. Almost every American that speaks his mind on the actions of the principle will blast him for his ill conceived behavior. It is very unlikely it will stand, the principle and school are in serious jeopardy, exposed to legal action, criminal and civil, and there may even be (certainly should be) new law passed by Congress preventing this kind of action in the future. (Contact your local Congressman and Senator, please!)

We have many problems in our country, but if you think that wherever you moved to doesn't, you are seriously self-deluded.
 

Northwestern

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[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Welcome to 1984.[/citation]
This is funny because my high school is reading that book right now.

Freedom of speech my ass.
 

jezus53

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Seriously? Someone stabbed a person at high school near us and only got a suspension. Hell I've had teachers swear in class. I guess I'm glad I don't live in Indiana. Plus, what gives them the right to track tweets? And even if they do, which I highly believe they don't, that is such a waste of public funds for a useless system. How about new books or updated classrooms? Who gives a F--- about what you're students post on twitter?
 

ringzero

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Why don't they block f-ing Twitter on the school's network?

I would have posted the whole word, but I'm at work and I'm afraid I'd be fired.
 
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