High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets
from the hello-free-speech-rights dept
Tinker v. Des Moines is considered a key lawsuit in defining the free speech rights of students. While there have been a few cases that limited the ruling, it's still seen as the key case in establishing that students have First Amendment rights and that schools can't just arbitrarily shut them down.I'm reminded of all this after hearing that a student, Austin Carroll at Garrett High School in Garrett, Indiana, was expelled from the school for a silly tweet that used the word "fuck" repeatedly. Supposedly he tweeted something along the lines of "Fuck is one of the fucking words you can fucking put anywhere in a fucking sentence and still fucking makes sense." A little juvenile, but he's in high school. He insists that he tweeted this from home, but the school insisted that it was done at school. But the details suggest the tweet came at 2:30am when he was definitely not at school.
What's coming out, however, is that the school was apparently spying on how students use Twitter:
The principal at Garrett High School claims their system tracks all the tweets on Twitter when a student logs in, meaning even if he did tweet it from home their system could have recognized it when he logged in again at school.I'm not entirely sure what they mean here by it "could have recognized it when he logged in again at school," but it seems clear that the school was aggressively monitoring social networking activity, and chose to expel the kid because of his decision to express himself. It sounds like Austin isn't fighting the expulsion, but simply found an alternative school to complete his last few months and get his diploma, but that's pretty ridiculous. I don't see how the school has a legitimate argument for expulsion here as it appears to violate his basic First Amendment rights. Even beyond that, though, it's really pretty shameful what the school is teaching its students. Spying on students and punishing them for expressing themselves gives exactly the wrong kind of message to students.
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Filed Under: austin caroll, cursing, free speech, garrett high school, schools
Companies: twitter
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Browbeaten
/troll
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Then again, perhaps the guy that was expelled has just learned a lesson a lot of people have learned to their horror at work. Never be logged into the work/school network and be on a social networking site and using it at the same time. You're just asking for trouble.
As far as this instance is concerned I can't think of a rational reason to expel this kid for using profanity at all. Most of the juvenile sentence sounds cleaner that what you can often hear on the school yard or in the halls.
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>Gets expelled from Techdirt
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or did I miss something?
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That's why Techdirt is verbotim in Germany! :)
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Now excuse me while I grab a fucking bar of soap and wash my fucking mouth..er typing fingers.
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It sounds like he did the actual tweet itself at home, probably on his own computer. Then at a later point at school, he logged onto his twitter account at which point the school, which is obviously data-mining network traffic, discovered the profanity-laden tweet and thought this would be a great time to out themselves for snooping on all http traffic. I strongly suspect if he had been using https he would have had no problems.
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Re: SCOTUS
It's called "modeling behavior", which is why our free speech rights get trampled all the time.
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>Why the fuck not?
>Dude, you just tweeted "fuck" again!
>It doesn't hurt anybody. Watch. Fuck-fucketty-fuck-fuck-fuck! And if the teacher, principal, and guidance counselor don't like it, they can all suck my balls!
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Does he access Twitter on a school computer? Its probably not a good idea to allow access to social networking sites on those computers. Maybe the schools IT policy needs some help..
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This is what I was wondering too. Considering the abysmal state of IT in typical school systems, they're spending money on systems that monitor every student's twitterings? How is that at all justified by anyone?!?
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On the other hand, this school apparently gives laptops to all its students - maybe they have so much money they don't know what to do with it.
Also, how exactly does this "monitoring" system work? If it's waiting for the user to log in because it uses the login session to request the information, that's probably illegal. They may have the right to look at traffic going through their network... but they certainly do not have the right to use that information to do whatever they want. I could legally have a keylogger installed on my computer, but if someone then uses my computer to check their email, that doesn't mean I can legally spy on their email until they change that password.
Oh, and by the way: Expelling him doesn't stop him from tweeting profanity. They've just lost ALL leverage they have against him. Are they next going to expell his Twitter followers if they dare to access his messages?
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Response to: khory on Mar 26th, 2012 @ 2:45pm
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Correct
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Re: Correct
I agree. I don't think you've checked all the facts, like going to the linked article and either reading or watching the video of the interview...
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Re: Correct Speller?
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Re: Correct
It says it was tweeted at 2:30 AM. Obviously meaning he wasn't at school!
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It's the exact opposite way around, your students are your bosses until your school board tells you to do something that conflicts with a student's wishes.
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That said, yes, they have access to the entire account when a student tweets...unless they're doing it from their phone, in which case, helloooo, Big Brother.
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Re: Correct
And seriously... can't we once and for all drop the ad homonym attacks? ;-)
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fucking fuck
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Re: fucking fuck
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That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "Fuck you." I'm positive, in fact.
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Grenades, knockers, bazooms, chesticles... the list goes on.
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"I wanna mow your lawn..."
"I wanna file your taxes..."
"I wanna subvert your democracy..."
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Kind of silly when I think back to my high school years and remember half my teachers and all of the subs cussed themselves!
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Gotta call BS on this one, unless ya got proof...
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It is related to TFA here; NEVER underestimate the amount of power that will be sufficient to go to someone's head.
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Fuckin'a
Schools are to teach. If you want to fucking parent then have your own god damn children. These are not your children for fuck's sake.
Child fucking tweets fuck and you think you can jump in a directly harm a child's future? Fucking tools.
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Union Oligarchy
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My Question...
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Re: My Question...
Fuckin' kid.
Seriously, fucking expelled for fucking tweeting "fuck"? What do they fucking do if you fucking smoke pot in the fucking bathroom? Fucking shoot you at dawn?
FUCK!
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Re: My Question...
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Christ I told the super of my school district to fuck off and I had to do a Saturday in detention. "It's not okay to talk to people like that but I was a kid"
Well that's one messed up school for sure :/ I doubt it will stick.
The schools don't need to be snooping around in kids twitters and facebooks that's their parents jobs. For all the school knows the whole family could talk like a bunch of sailors.
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Fuck is versatile, it can be every word in a sentence
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What you do in the public space can come back to haunt you in many ways you ordinarily would not expect. Freedom of expression oftentimes comes at a price.
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Fuck in and out of school
First Amendment Rights is just one (very important) issue. Why does the school have access to what students do and say away from school? It's the parents responsibility and the school should be doing only what they're intended for. I understand there are rules and standards while students are at school or a school function but otherwise this school and principal stepped WAY over the boundaries. Unless I missed some new law, policing kids after school hours isn't part of of a school's job.
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I think
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Fucking language
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Masnick when you tweet and someone reads your tweet, are they spying on you ?
or dont I have a right to read you tweets if I work for a school, or am someone you dont like ?
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The tweet was educational!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rX7-R54-Q8
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Second, they may have a legitimate reason for monitoring accounts they are aware of. Their handbook prohibits posting pictures of students and faculty without obtaining permission first.
Third, their handbook doesn't mention language regarding student conduct, other than that used in a threatening manner. I think they overstepped their authority in this case.
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I'll agree. But they have little reason to be watching it, either.
"Second, they may have a legitimate reason for monitoring accounts they are aware of. Their handbook prohibits posting pictures of students and faculty without obtaining permission first."
They can't legitimately prohibit that. Assuming it's a public school, the students do have First Amendment rights - especially for actions done outside of school.
"Third, their handbook doesn't mention language regarding student conduct, other than that used in a threatening manner."
That's about the only case where an expulsion would be warranted for out-of-school internet use. If the student posted that he was going to shoot up the school, then student safety would demand that he not be allowed IN the school. But typed profanity? Is that really such a threat to the school that the student cannot ever be allowed to attend the school again?
There's really two issues here. One is that the school is punishing him for out of school activities, the second is that they are expelling him for mere profanity. I'm not even sure which is worse.
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http://www.reportabully.com/rab_form_sub_handler3.php
I suggest you all should go and report Principal Matt Smith as the bully that he is.
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Response to: Don't Toews Me Bro on Mar 26th, 2012 @ 7:09pm
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FUCK!
;3
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There is literally no telling how many schools have policies that mandate close oversight/spying on students on and off campus. This could be standard policy for many schools for all we know.
We already have students being spied on by having webcams activated in their homes when the students assumed the webcams were really turned off which I'm sure generated just hours of footage for some of the sick-fuck admins to pleasure themselves over in their free time. But also sent the message that cases like this certainly aren't isolated.
Not that we'll ever actually get an audit/reform of the school system, its major failings only gives more power to the educational institutions who have to pick up the pieces afterwards.
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Two types of fetishists are attracted to the school room -- pedophiles and martinets. Neither should be tolerated near children, or in government.
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turn this around
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nun ya
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Anonymous =\= coward. What difference is there between Anonymous and, say, Bob123? Hmm?
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What's the deal? Getting EXPELLED for saying 'Fuck'???!
This fucking country..... holy shit...
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Also, I don't get why the school doesn't just block social networking sites, the fact that they don't just says that they're looking for reasons to get the kids in trouble
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Freedom of Speech
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Garrett High Fiasco
Currently circulating around the Garrett-Keyser-Butler school district:
"The entire student body at Garrett High School is organizing a protest to support Austin Carroll's constitutional right to free speech. We are planning to have ALL students in the school tweet the EXACT SAME MESSAGE at 6pm this Friday night (3/30) from their homes. Either the school will have to expel all of us, or defend why they expelled only Austin, while ignoring the "crimes" of the rest of the student body..."
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Re: Garrett High Fiasco
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A little harsh, but...
How is this different from where you work? I know my company's HR will swoop down in a heartbeat and will discipline anyone using company assets to access non-business sites. And guess what, they don't block those sites, because they believe in accountability and responsibility.
Like I said, I think the punishment is extreme in this case, but what a great lesson to learn so young in life. When given expectations, there are consequences for your actions if you don't abide by those expectations.
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Re: A little harsh, but...
You aren't legally required to work at your current place of employment and the company you work for doesn't claim to exist for your benefit.
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Even worse...
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Only in america
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Call them
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hope he learned his lesson
"Spying on students and punishing them for expressing themselves gives exactly the wrong kind of message to students."
Actually I think it is the exact message they want to send. "We have power, we can hurt you and use any arbitrary justification, and you can't do anything to us."
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Statement
I believe whoever said this doesn't know the system all that well but well enough to know it spies on twitter accounts. It seems to me that if he logs on at school, they look at everything he tweets, when he goes home, it probably doesn't look but maybe it does I'm not sure, but when he goes to school and logs back in, "it could have" looked at past tweets it had not looked at yet, and then taken action
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This is probably worthy of being protested to the local school board at the minimum, and if they won't hear you, the threat of a lawsuit might change their minds.
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I think you're all missing the real issue....
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I do believe this article beats out Beavis and Butthead..
I didn't RTFA.
Was the Twitter account his or the schools?
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Re: I do believe this article beats out Beavis and Butthead..
TL;DR
uh, huh huh huh huh, huh huh, uh, read the article.
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school email list
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Re: school email list
Matt Smith
Principal
msmith@gkb.k12.in.us
probably better to contact the district superintendent at this point.
Dennis Stockdale, Superintendent of Schools, dstockdale@gkbschools.org
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Re: school email list
Dennis Stockdale
@MrDStockdale
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End Public Education
Fuck me, and especially the superintendents, who collect executive-level salaries as we suck the money out of the ignorant parents and productive people of society.
Education is self-driven and schooling is a profitable public-private partnership.
The great teachers were volunteers who took it upon themselves to deliver wisdom to the young.
The young would attend their lectures because they genuinely wanted to learn from the masters.
When the school threatens the student/parents with fines and criminal charges for not attending please know that that institution is no longer a school but a slave-master.
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Send the school an email!
msmith@gkb.k12.in.us
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linux
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are they even allowed to read your tweets?
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game creater
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hay i am king of all trolls and anoymous coward stop it with the rude behavor this website is not for playing its for writing not using bad words like hell no or bitch or fatass or dont use any bad world like retarded if this cotines i will create a bloc
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hay pretest i can do whatever i want to do here thers is no block log list so give it up well you have the chance
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please you are not king of all trolls so run away
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THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING
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FINAL WARNING
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