Judge: School can suspend students over fake MySpace profile

[tannybogus]

A federal judge has ruled that a Pennsylvania school can suspend two eighth-graders who created a fake MySpace profile of their principal depicting him as a pedophile and a sex addict, among other things. The September 11 ruling said the students' civil rights were not violated despite their actions taking place off school grounds because the language used on the profile was "lewd and vulgar," and because it was akin to speech that promoted illegal actions. Given the recent prevalence of fake MySpace profiles meant to taunt or harass others at school, this ruling could help decide future cases related to student speech online.
The story goes back to March 2007, when a profile representing the principal of Blue Mountain Middle School, James McGonigle, popped up on MySpace. The profile didn't explicitly identify McGonigle by name, but used a photo of him taken from the school district's website and labeled him as principal. Among McGonigle's alleged interests listed on MySpace were "f****** in my office" and "hitting on students and their parents." The profile also had a statement with the headline "HELLO CHILDREN," that read (in part), "yes. It's your oh so wonderful, hairy, expressionless, sex addict, fagass, put on this world with a small d*** PRINCIPAL I have come to myspace so I can pervert the minds of other principals to be just like me."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080922-judge-school-can-suspend-students-over-fake-myspace-profile.html

Wow! Here we go.I don't like the fake profile, but this ruling crosses into dangerous territory.

[ingac70]

1. If the profile had simply made fun of him...

I'd say the ruling is too much, but what those kids did is fucked up.

[readmoreoften]

2. I'm not sure how this ruling crosses into some new dangerous territory.

It's school related. If the other kids can access it at school through computers, it's happening 'in' school. It's suspension, not a criminal sentence. If I drew a photo of my teacher in 1985 with the same language, passed it around to everyone at school and someone's parents found out and called the school, I would've been suspended in 1985.

Pretty much a non-issue to me compared to every other sort of horrific surveillance that goes on at school.

[GA_ArmyVet]

3. What the kids did was criminal.

They are luck to get just a suspension and not a civil and criiminal trial. They framed a person to appear as a sex criminal which could destroy the mans career and put him in jeopardy of his life if some lunatic wrongly believed his or her child had been molested by this man. He should take them to civil court as well.

[tannybogus]

4. I would take them to civil court.

That's where I think it should be adjudicated.

[ixion]

5. "civil rights were not violated...because the language used on the profile was "lewd and vulgar,"

:wtf:

So apparently, if you're vulgar you have no civil rights?

Again: :wtf:

[MiniMe]

6. When I read the title, I thought the article was talking about their personal

My Space pages. After reading what the page was about, I don't think the punishment is out of line. The principle is probably on some kind of pedifile sh eets somewhere n the anti-pedophile unit. The only thing I would say is for the principle to recuse himself from handing out the punishment. This isn't about the principle getting revenge, it's about punishing them for what they did. And it would be too easy for the principal to be vengeful in this situation.