It is said that millennials are unlike any other generation
then world has ever seen. We were raised on high speed, instant access, and the
ability to stay connected to nearly everyone we have ever meet. With the
ability to post everything we ever think, and to let people into our lives so
readily, it is no surprise that online speech is a hot topic. Not just any
online speech, but how students should use online speech. In December of 2013
federal appeals court issues a significant ruling on student online speech. The
9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the expulsion of a student who
was accused of making a threatening online statement. In this case Wynar v. Douglas County School District
Nevada high school student messages, “presented a real risk of significant disruption
to school activities and interfered with the rights of other students”. He
claimed that the messages that he sent were just jokes to his friend where they
would talk about guns and, “shooting people on the anniversary of the Columbine
and Virginia Tech massacres”. One of Wynar’s friends expressed concern to their
football coach, and Wynar was eventually suspended for 90 days.
This opinion is important to and has set the path for
student speech in a few different ways. First it shows us that there is a very
big debate, and almost an even split, on student speech when they are off
campus. The 9th Circuit Court noted in their argument about how
divided The Court was during the Tinker case as well. It is hard to draw the
line about how far students are allowed to go when speaking about school in an
off campus setting. The opinion is also important because it “relies in part on
the oft-ignored prong or the Tinker test”. This meaning that school have the
right to limit student speech if it interferes with the rights of other students.
It also shows us the First Amendment applies
even when there is expression of violence. “School officials must take care not
to overreact and to take into account the creative juices and often startling
writings of the students”.
This case stood out to me, because I very much sit on both
sides of the fence on this one. As a person wanting to work with kids who show
signs of being mass murders and arsonist, it is really hard for me to agree
with the court saying that school should not overreact. It is a fact that,
children especially, give signs of being unstable or “abnormal”. The only way
to stop that act of violence is to know the signs and get that person help. At
the same time, he could have just been upset and angry with the school for
something, and did not think about what he was posting. I think rather than
giving the him 90 days suspension, they should have him working with a counselor
because his post do show signs of high aggression levels which could led to
future anger issues.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/federal-appeals-court-issues-significant-ruling-on-student-online-speech
http://edlawinsights.com/2013/09/10/wynar-ninth-circuit-upholds-discipline-of-student-for-off-campus-online-threat-of-school-shooting/
As a person who has worked with some of the more dangerous children of this generation, I cannot say I completely agree with their logic. True schools need to be proactive and try to prevent more school shootings from happening but being overly dramatic won’t help that. What a lot of people fail to realize is how much a dramatic reaction to a situation could heighten it even more, especially with children. Children crave attention and will do anything to get it even something as dumb as talking about Columbine or Virginia Tech (which I’m sure they barely know anything about). We have to think of different ways to approach these kinds of situations because not every “violent” writing or drawing is a cry for help or a threat. Children are unstable regardless of what messages they put out into the world, they are growing up and learning about themselves. Personally we are more likely to create the monsters we don’t want trying to push them into counseling thus opening the door for the bullying of children calling them crazy. The bullying is more likely to drive them insane than anything else. Suspension is only as effective as the involvement of the parents raising them, which in most cases isn’t the best. So yes we do need to keep our eyes and ears open for potential danger but no we don’t have to take every situation to the extreme.
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