Indiana district responds to suit by students expelled for Facebook comments that online postings posed threat to student safety
The Associated Press (AP) reports on NECN.com that in response to the federal lawsuit filed by three students expelled after commenting on Facebook about wanting to kill classmates, Griffith Public Schools (GPS) disputed that the comments were jokes and violated their free speech rights. Instead, GPS charged the online postings “and this disturbing conversation posed a ‘true threat’ and two of the threatened students were so fearful of the threats that they missed classes and school.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana (ACLU-IN), which is representing the girls, argues that GPS officials violated the girls’ civil rights by expelling them on the basis of a personal, off-campus conversation. An ACLU lawyer has said that it was clear the girls were joking because their remarks were accompanied by smiley faces and other emoticons, along with Internet shorthand, such as “LOL.”
However, GPS, in its response, said the mother of a student went to school administrators after her daughter refused to attend school because she was afraid of “the graphic threats.” The school district claims the students’ postings “constituted a substantial disruption to the school environment, thus warranting the school’s actions.”
Source: NECN.com, 6/13/12, By AP
[Editor's Note: In April 2012, Legal Clips summarized an Associated Press article in The Washington Post, which reported on the filing of the suit. According to the suit, school officials told the girls they had violated school policy against bullying, harassment, and intimidation. However, ACLU-IN attorney Gavin Rose said that “[t]he fact of the matter is that no reasonable person looking at this conversation would think that these girls were going to go out and inflict harm on anyone.” “If you make a legitimate threat against someone … you don’t follow it up with an emoticon.”
In February 2012, Legal Clips summarized a posting by the Student Press Law Center, which reported that a bill that would allow schools to punish students for off-campus actions had been approved by the Indiana House of Representatives in January 2012 and was then-sitting in a Senate committee. According to state Representative Eric Koch, House Bill 1169 was an attempt to deal with growing issues like cyberbullying and cheating.]
