From the City Pages article:
' The Student Press Law Center's Mark Goodman puts it this way: "As a parent I find it troubling that a school would say, 'We have the authority to police what a kid says or reads on their own time.' It seems the logical conclusion of that train of thought is very problematic: that a school can make its own determination of what is appropriate, and can randomly punish students for things that are done outside of school. Do we want a world where schools have more authority than parents do to dictate what students do on their own time? Because schools, with the best of intentions, are moving closer to that kind of authority every day." '
It certainly sounds like the administration at South High is riddled with idiots. Mpls. Public Schools attorney Margaret Westin sounds equally idiotic. If she believes the speech is unconstitutional threatening or obscene speech, they should have pursued criminal charges -- but they did not. Instead, they resorted to illegal intimidation simply because they knew they'd be thrown out of court. Numerous lawsuits around the country involving students who publish from home have ruled in favor of those students.
I'm astonished that South High was able to suspend any students for work on this web site. Had I been a parent of one of them, I'd have hired a pair of good lawyers, one well-versed in constitutional law, and sued them until their mea maxima culpa's were well-known by all students and citizens, city-wide. What kind of chutzpah does it take to punish a student for what he or she does in his or her own time outside of school, especially when those acts are protected by the Constitution?
Stop wasting my taxpayer dollars, South High and Minneapolis Public Schools, and do your jobs.
Chris Johnson Fulton
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
www.southhighsucks.com
An unofficial student web site owned by a former South High student, Christopher David, who also worked on the official school newspaper at South High. The 4 students who founded the web site were given three day suspensions, and threatened with further disciplinary action if they didn't shut down the web site. Three of the students agree to quit the group that launched the web site. David, a South High Senior was suspended again, then given an administrative transfer for refusing to shut down the site. There was a story about it in City pages, see:
http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1113/article10285.asp
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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