Student in Court Over Suspension For YouTube Video 397
kozmonaut writes "A model student is in court this week over 40-day suspension for posting a mocking in-class video to YouTube of 'Mongzilla', a high school english teacher. The student is arguing he had First Amendment rights to publish the video, though it was filmed without permission in the classroom. 'Kent School District lawyer Charles Lind says the suspension had nothing to do with online criticism of the teacher. Rather, it was punishment for the disruption created by the students secreting a video camera into Joyce Mong's class and dancing in a mocking, disrespectful manner while her back was turned. "It's quite clear that the district is talking about conduct in the classroom and not the videotape," Lind said.'"
Your Rights Online? (Score:5, Insightful)
sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
only a lawyer (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:3, Insightful)
No expectation of privacy in a public place (Score:1, Insightful)
Isn't that what we keep getting told when the government put CCTV cameras up?
Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Perfectly UNreasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
If you hold them to their stated reason (or rather, excuse) for the punishment, it's for "disrupting the class." 40 days is several orders of magnitude too extreme. It's like executing somebody for spitting out their gum on the sidewalk.
No, they're punishing him for embarrassing the teacher (and exercising his rights), and now they're just trying to cover their asses.
It's okay... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do "model" students have more rights? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bring back corporal punishment. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sounds like (Score:2, Insightful)
No, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
But if a student has never been disciplined before, jumping straight to a 40-day suspension for a first offense that is neither illegal nor dangerous seems a tad unreasonable.
So no, model students don't have more rights than non-model students, but model students probably deserve lighter punishment for the same offense than students who are constant sources of problems and have been disciplined several times before.
Re:Everyone knows that the camera dosn't lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Disruption of the classroom is a common reason for detention, and in extreme cases, expulsion. As a first offense, it might be a bit much, but if the offenders are continuously causing problems, they deserve the punishments they receive, even harsh ones. Pandering to the crowd of "save the children" and "no child left behind" is a mistake we're beginning to see the results of now. It will only get worse if we keep it up.
In Court... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:sounds like (Score:3, Insightful)
Another question the kid should ask is: what is the policy? If they have a policy for suspension, what does it say in this case? Is disruption of class typically a 40 day penalty? If so, I wonder how they would've handled a drunk kid at the prom, which seems worse, to me, than a prank in class.
Seems to me a knee-jerk reaction designed to send a message, but, as usual with school boards - I served on one - it's the wrong message. Cue quote from M. Twain...
Re:Perfectly reasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing that really gets me about this sort of case is this idiot goes and films a bunch of other people without their permission and posts it online then says it's his right to freedom of expression. Somehow that right is violated if the people in the video or in this case the school have an objetion to the video being posted for public display. When you deal with the media or photographers, you have to sign a model release form stating that you give express permission to the person taking the video to use you in whatever they're going to use the video for. The same thing applies if some random jackass with a video camera decides to film you. They have absolutely no right whatsoever to put that video on the internet without your permission. Let alone film you.
Re:sounds like (Score:3, Insightful)
If you aren't going to read the article, at least read the summary. He's suing the school for suspending him. They aren't suing him.
This appears to be intentional humiliation of a teacher. That's got serious repercussions; who'd want to go to work where they are routinely humiliated by people they are trying to help? It creates a seriously hostile working environment, something employers have a responsibility to address.
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:3, Insightful)
In a way, you're right. But, they aren't there to learn the three R's. They are there to be acclimatized to the working world where they obey orders, schedule their time around the bell, and become dependent on their "superiors".
Re:Artistic? (Score:2, Insightful)
School is angered by this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The school is alleging the video disrupted class - so that's why the student was suspended. So how disrupted was the class that they had to find the video on YouTube to know about it? Did the teacher not mention how 'disrupted' her class was? Ok then fire her.
Allowing this to go on is a disgusting example of a school board as a whole.
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Bride of Mongzilla? [douginadress.com]
Not harsh enough! (Score:1, Insightful)
This kid brought a video camera in to class, videotapped his teacher posted a very degrading and insulting video on the internet. Nothing on that video shows the teacher doing anything wrong, (except possibly the lack of organisation).
But what an asshole of a child! I think 40 days suspension isn't enough for this kind of behaviour, he should have been expelled. How do you think this teacher would feel? I wonder how this video has affected her life?
If some pissy little kid made a video like this about me, I'd be after more than expolsion. Monetary compensation maybe.
Having said all that, the video was very funny. Which only makes it much much worse.
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:only a lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)
As the posters say: "Not everyone gets to be an astronaut.", and it's true. Regardless of effort, some people simply aren't as smart as others. No reason to rake them over the coals over it though. If poor grades aren't due to a lack of effort, I have no issue with them.
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the next cop who pulled you over for speeding dragged you off to jail for several days, I'm sure you would happily take "Sorry, buddy, had to make an example for other speeders" as an excuse.
Re:Everyone knows that the camera dosn't lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools don't prevent disruptions to help the teachers have a nice day. They do it to foster a learning environment for the students. If 3 or 4 of the students are doing something majorly disruptive like dancing behind the teacher's back, -nobody- is learning at the point, and probably not for a while afterwards.
The punishment may not fit the crime, but I don't remember a time in school when it -did-, so that's nothing new. I was once written up for not doing my work in class (I had finished already) and when the teacher tried to rescind, wasn't allowed. Why? The vice-principal didn't like me. He actually had the nerve to say 'I just wanted to see if you'd show up' when I got there. I still had to do clean-up duty for something I didn't even do. Oh yeah, fair.
I've always seen expulsion as a way to let the kids that didn't WANT to be in school, not be. If they want to pass after that, they're going to have to work their little butts off just to pass. They won't have time to disrupt the class any more when they get back. (Nevermind what they'll have to deal with from their parents.) Nobody I knew ever had it happen to them, though. They cared about their grades too much.
Re:Artistic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:sounds like (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, my students *are* subordinate to me in class. Want to know why? Two reasons:
1) Legal: *I'm* liable for the shit that happens in the classroom. If I'm going to be saddled with the responsibility (and I should be -- that's one reason they pay me), then I better have some tools at my disposal to control student behaviour.
2) Educational: There's me, there's the curriculum, and there's 20-30 students. If one or two decide to fuck around and disrupt class, am I supposed to sit on my hands until they decide to let the class proceed? You think maybe the rest of the students might be there to learn something?
There should be no power without responsibility, but there should also be no responsibility without commensurate power. If a student starts to disrupt my class, they're out the door so fast their heads spin. This joker might get his suspension overturned, but he'd never set foot in a classroom of mine ever again.
Today's lesson: "Your actions have motherfucking CONSEQUENCES."
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are the facts as I understand them, and if I've gotten something wrong please tell me:
This teacher is a private individual, not a public individual.
The content for this video was captured during school hours, in a class.
This caused embarrassment to a private individual (teacher) not a public individual (aka a politician/athlete/entertained)
The school has not attempted to pull the video down or to censor this "creative kid" beyond his punishment
An argument can be made for excessive punishment but this discussion has not be framed in that light so that seems completely irrelevant to me. The only conclusion I'm left with is some jackass kid got punished for being disruptive; sounds like your average day to me.
Re:Forthcoming lawsuits will set another example. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your Rights Online? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Perfectly reasonable (Score:1, Insightful)
I would like to propose National Stalking Day. In honor of the Supreme Court deciding arbitrarily that people have no "expectation of privacy" in "public spaces", I call on men everywhere to select a woman and follow them around for a day (staying, of course, entirely on public land for the duration, as per Supreme Court guidance). Evening festivities will include sitting on public streets and looking into people's windows using only publicly available technology such as telescopes and binoculars. Up-skirt photos will be sold at stands for a memento of what privacy used to mean before the Supreme Court got their hands on it.
On privacy, the supreme court is full of nothing but hot air and bullshit.
Re:Artistic? (Score:4, Insightful)
We can not legislate all aspects of human behavior. It simply does not work.
American society has devolved to "if I can get away with it, I can do it" - many thanks to the prevailing governing administration for promoting this point during the final years of our society. "Required" is now only meaningful in the face of lawsuits to prevent or punish. Healthy societies have both laws AND mores that shape people's behaviors. In this case simple mores for treating people with respect and decency would have stopped this kid, had their parents had the time or understanding to raise their child correctly.
Recording other people is a very dicey issue. Typically recording people in public areas is OK without permission, although recording ocnversations when privacy is reasonably expected is not. Laws vary in different states. I have an interst in this, though I'm not an expert or a lawyer.
In this case, they are in a public institution, and although it was not a public space, there is really no expectation of privacy. Standing up in front of a class of people is exactly the kind of step that can remove the "expectation of privacy".