CA High School Students Kill A First Amendment-Violating 'Social Media Contract'
from the more-cyberbullying-hysteria dept
The internet offers a ton of positives for schools but so many cling to the belief that it's the enemy. If it's not Wikipedia streamlining students' research efforts, it's the general unfiltered and unsupervised nature of the beast itself, one that doesn't fit in with most administrations' desire to control all inputs into their students' minds.
Social media is even more problematic, what with its student-to-student interface and the ever-present possibility of bad things happening, like cyberbullying or the creation of child pornography (by consenting teens). It can even be turned into a vehicle for mockery of the school and its employees. The solution? Ultra-restrictive policies that minimize the school's exposure in case of unpleasantness.
The Lodi School District in California recently added a new social media policy, one that wasn't taken well by a number of Bear Creek High School students.
Last spring at the end of the 2013 school year, the Lodi school district adopted a new regulation, “Social Networking by Student-Athletes and Co-Curricular Participants,” that all students and their parents must sign as a requirement to take part in sports or clubs. Under the agreement, students agree to submit to the school’s disciplinary authority for what they say on social networking sites, even off-campus on their personal time. Among the types of speech the policy purports to ban are: (1) speech making references to violence or to alcohol or drug use, (2) speech indicating knowledge of cyberbullying, (3) speech that is “demeaning” about any person, (4) “liking” or “retweeting” a social media post that contains prohibited speech, and (5) “subtweeting,” or posting a comment on Twitter that refers to a person who is not named.Anyone with a passing familiarity with the First Amendment can see the problems inherent in this policy, especially considering it claims authority over off-campus actions. Also problematic is the fact that the policy only affects students who wish to engage in extracurricular activities. The whole "contract" (as the district refers to it) is a gray area, something made worse by it being wholly subject to the personal interpretations of administration members.
Fortunately, Bear Creek students decided to fight back.
The social media policy of the Lodi Unified School District is eliciting strong protests from students at Bear Creek High School in Stockton, some of whom voiced their concerns at the board meeting Tuesday night.Faced with this, the administration leapt to the defense of the "social media contract."
The students represent more than 300 students who signed a petition against the district-wide policy on social media for high school students participating in extracurricular activities.
Bear Creek Principal Bill Atterberry told KCRA 3 the policy combats cyber-bullying.Atterberry apparently believes that if he says something, it must be true. Cyberbullying is "rampant," or so those writing cyberbullying policies and laws claim. But actual research shows the bullying and cyberbullying have been on the decline over the past decade. The decline is even greater when compared with numbers from the early-90s.
"Online bullying is a problem, and we are looking to safeguard our students, because it is rampant," he said.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of efforts being made to fight an exaggerated problem and the frequent end result is overwrought policies like Lodi's.
But back to Principal Atterbury and his assertion of non-factual claims as facts.
Students have also talked to an attorney, who said the contract is illegal.Keep this statement in mind for later. And this as well.
"Our attorneys looked at it and said it was fine, so the attorneys will hash it out," Atterberry said.
As it stands, students are required to sign the contract in order to participate in any extra-curricular activity.The students' protest drew the attention of the Student Press Law Center, which fired off a six page letter detailing the problems with the Lodi District's "social media contract," stating that the policy "fails to withstand the most basic First Amendment scrutiny."
Faced with this additional heat, the district has decided to drop the policy.
Amid pressure from attorneys, the Lodi Unified School District is suspending a controversial Twitter and Facebook policy.This doesn't seem to be the sort of thing one does with a policy that's legally "fine." This seems more like something one does when they're caught trying to enforce questionable policies.
In a statement, the superintendent writes, “We will revise the statement in order to clearly communicate the original intent, which was to describe how social networking can lead to consequences at school.’
And then there's this.
The district claims the contract was more of a guideline, and they are set to review it on Tuesday.Really? A week ago, it was a requirement. Any student wishing to partake in extracurricular activities was made to sign the "contract" first. This claim also runs counter to another statement the district made earlier in the week.
District officials said that clubs and athletics are singled out because it’s an activity that schools can take away from a student.Odd. That also seems more like a "requirement" to me. After all, you can't hold anything over a student's head if you don't have their signed consent.
It's good to see something positive result from pushback against policies like these. Too often, school districts feel the best way to deal with things they have little control over is to craft broad, far-reaching policies. Sure, these districts may be operating with "good intentions," but these policies are often cures that do more damage than the disease. Erring on the side of caution is still an error, no matter how pure the intentions behind it.
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Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, social media, students
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They wouldn't be making students sign it if it was a "guideline". They planned to enforce this. Frankly, any official who claims otherwise should be fired and/or voted out, because they are blatantly lying to the public.
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What is it with people who claim to have the best interests of children at heart, but who also believe that children have no rights?
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People are strange when it comes to children & their rights. Like when it comes to charging children as adults. Everyone wants to tell these children they have no rights other than what their parents/guardians give them because they are children, and there is no recourse otherwise. Until they do something wrong, then all the sudden it's "Well they were old enough to know better". The whole method of dealing with children thus far really is very backwards and in most cases instead of bettering the child/children's situations it only serves to make things worse.
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Wouldn't it be great if...
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You have to learn how to deal with assholes eventually.
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It is only when you can find an ally that you can make the stupid back down.
As some of them are approaching the age of 18 and will soon be voters, they should remember how wonderfully they were treated by this board, and vote them all the hell out requiring the new membership to clean house of the stupid.
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It looks like they just did.
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Sometimes when they are this stupid, you need to push them to understand the stupid.
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This is actually encouraging
Here's a quote from one of the KRCA stories linked above, from student Jacob Williams:
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Re: This is actually encouraging
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Re: Voidable Contracts
> this policy? That's why they hire someone whose
> job is to know the law, and let them know when
> the First Amendment says they can't actually make
> whatever rules they want regarding student speech.
The 1st Amendment doesn't even need to be considered here. Basic contract law applies. The vast majority of the students who would have beeen required to sign this contract are minors. Minors cannot be bound by the contracts they sign; in other words, contracts with minors are voidable. So the kids could all sign this idiotic nonsense, and then when the school tried to discipline them based on the contract, just say, "Hey, I'm a minor. I hereby void that contract as if it never existed. So suck it."
But more importantly, any 1st-year law student knows this sort of thing, so how it breezed past the shining lights in the school district's legal departmnet is god's own private mystery.
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Re: Re: Voidable Contracts
How does this work, if they are not contracts because the children are minors?
It isn't really contract law, it's a quid-pro-quo within the walls of a disciplinary hierarchy. The school can enforce it unilaterally without resort to the courts, and without it being recognized legally by the courts, simply by withholding participation in the extracurriculars in question, or other punishments.
(Barring 1st amendment issues of course.)
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Re: Re: Re: Voidable Contracts
> of a disciplinary hierarchy. The school can enforce it unilaterally
> without resort to the courts, and without it being recognized
> legally by the courts, simply by withholding participation in the
> extracurriculars in question, or other punishments.
If these aren't real contracts and the school doesn't need a contract to enforce such policies, why bother with having the students sign something called a contract at all? Just announce the new policy and enforce it on everyone. The fact that they felt they had to get the students' signatures indicates that their legal team told them merely unilaterally implementing it as a rule was a legal non-starter. Unfortunately for them, so is turning it into a contract.
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First Amendment-Violating 'Social Media Contract'
That turned out a lot better than I expected.
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Glad to see school board got a 2nd opinion
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Re: Glad to see school board got a 2nd opinion
Why would they need help from a "local Student Law center"?
How would suing the principle benefit the students' future collegiate prospects?
Your whole post reeks of disdain, why is that? You think students should just submit to the school authoritarian rule because it is good practice for the "real world"?
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Oh the memories.
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This is true no matter where you go, what institution(s) you have to deal with, or whatever organization is blowing smoke up your ass. Higher education is not free of this by any means, the OP simply lacks a clue.
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And aren't they generally less intrusive in practice than high school proposals, if only because the balance of power is not so overwhelmingly in favor of the institution, as they are dealing with older students (adults) with more independent lives?
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The reason behind the 'guidance'
However, their over-arching concern certainly did backfire on them spectacularly, and I'm pretty proud of those kids who did this to them.
They had it coming to them, hands down.
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Cyberbullying does not exist
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Re: Cyberbullying does not exist
You appear to be fighting fire with fire.
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Re: Cyberbullying does not exist
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2- post whatever forbidden ideas you have
3- ????
4- Profit
Of course given the current state of affairs it could get you locked up in Guantanamo.
There are plenty of reasons to protect privacy and anonymity in every aspect of life, only a fool or some sociopath can't see it.
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Wait, what now!?
"(2) speech indicating knowledge of cyberbullying,"
Come again? Are you saying that it's against your "anti-cyberbullying-rules" to call people out for "cyberbullying"?
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Re: Wait, what now!?
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Yet another reason...
Government "schooling" is all about instituting the myth of State authority (that individuals within the State have more rights than the polis) as well as implementing a form of emotional thinking rather than true critical thinking.
For more on this topic I highly recommend looking into the works of John Taylor Gatto. A great place to start is on YouTube with "The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto".
Government schooling is about obedience to the State. Real education comes from learning by engaging in what an individual is passionate about.
I prefer consensual relationships and voluntary exchange.
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Good intentions
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