Student Wins Case against School over Website

A student who was punished for a website he created at home that was critical of the middle school he had attended has been awarded over $117K in damages from the school, according to the AP story at USA Today. The school said they punished the student after seeking legal counsel and believed that they were protecting other students, in response to anti-Semitic remarks that were left as comments on the student’s site.

November 8, 2005 by Uncategorized 3

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3 Responses

  1. lijemo says:
    November 9, 2005 at 2:27 am

    He’s being punished for comments he didn’t make?

    From the article:

    Comments posted on the site’s “guest book” section angered school officials, who suspended Dwyer for a week, benched him from playing on the baseball team for a month, and barred him from going on his class trip, among other discipline

    They punished the kid because other people left comments on a website he created on his own time at home?

    While the anti-semetic comments are troubling, they were made by other peope. That’s like finding offensive graffitti and punishing the person who owns the wall that was vandalized!

    Reply
  2. Fang-Face says:
    November 9, 2005 at 6:28 pm

    Re:He’s being punished for comments he didn’t make

    That’s like finding offensive graffitti and punishing the person who owns the wall that was vandalized!

    Sic transit gloria prohibitorum.

    There is no rhyme or reason to censorship; just folly and reactionism. And remember the moral from Aesop’s fable about the wolf who eats the lamb for drinking at the same stream he was drinking from: Any excuse will do for a tyrant.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous Patron says:
    November 10, 2005 at 12:41 am

    Precisely
    That’s the level of most school officials. All the rationality of a woodlouse. It’s the reason why we’ve got such a strong movement for home schools, and vouchers. Which are a fundamentally wrong direction for a open, inclusive and democratic society to be taking – but a logical response to idiocy like this…

    — Ender, Duke_of_URL

    Reply

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