Blogspulsion -- student may be expelled for a Xanga blog entry

Occidentality ^ | 5/23/06 | mckreck

[mckreck]

A student at a public high school in Plainfield, IL, a far southwest suburb of Chicago, faces an expulsion hearing next week. Not so meaningful in itself, perhaps, so let me trickle out the details.

The hearing has been called because the student posted on his blog at xanga.com that his district, District 202, had bullied and threatened him. The ACLU has insinuated itself into the controversy.

At this point, the meaning of the hearing begins to clarify: the student is being, if not persecuted, at least being made an example of. Schools have recently become aware of MySpace and Xanga, and are increasingly adopting policies that allow them to influence the content of student web pages. This student, it would seem, may be simply be a victim of poor timing, falling between the period when students believed they could say anything and the period when students understood that officials at their school be checking their site.

Now let's add this: on May 2 the student wrote, without mentioning the school by name, that "I feel threatened by you, I cant even have a public Web page with out you bullying me and telling me what has to be removed." He added in the same letter, "Did you ever stop to think this will start a community backlash? The kids at Columbine did what the did because they were bullied.... In my opinion you are the real threat here." [...]

While American school officials have not distinguished themselves in recent years with regard to sensibly responding to potential threats, in this case a hearing about the student's words seems reasonable.

[mckreck]

For anyone who is interested, I wrote about a story in the Chicago Sun-Times about a high school student who faces expulsion for a blog entry he wrote. As I started digging things up from the high school blogs at Xanga I was able to piece together some of what the fuss was about. Since there has been a lot of talk about schools censoring student blogs, and since this pretty much strikes right at the heart of the conservative divide between free speech and the desire that schools teach students to be good citizens, I thought people here might be interested. And for any parent who hasn't seen it, the Xanga links might prove instructive.

[geezerwheezer]

Seems like the kid is trying to make the point that the school system has become more "Big Brother" than he cares to embrace. Smart Kid !! When you let unelected school administrators dicate total policy over a child's life, then you have abdicated your rights as a citizen or as a parent. It's time t open up a can of full strength WHUPASS on this school district and set them straight.

[mckreck]

On the one hand, I'm inclined to agree. I accidentally left it off the excerpt, but here's the link to the orginal article in the Sun-Times. On the other hand, the full story is that the kid is a friend of a kid who posted a threatening message directed at one of the administrators. The first kid gets suspended both for this and for, apparently, being part of a group that set a fire in the bathroom. The kid in the article then gets aggressive in two posts on Xanga, the ones described in the article, and that is what led to the expulsion hearing. I just thought it was an interesting story. I'm not sure what to make of it, except to say that expulsion is a little harsh. The posts were school related; they were literally directed to the school. And they arguably threatened violence, though they were so passive aggressive about it that that I personally don't think they were a real threat. Hard to say what to do on these facts.

[Boundless]

Yet another reason to phase out government schools.

Replace "ought wallowing" over web policy with
parents choosing or negotiating it when they
pick the school.

The prime directive of government schools is
preservation and expansion of government schools.
Free speech is fundamentally incompatible with that.

[geezerwheezer]

If the kid involved was 35 or so, then get after him in a big way. This kid needs to be talked to by his dad, or the school principal and told to cool his anger, but to decide to expell him shows a total lack of thinking on the school administration's part, and shows me they are more concerned about being politically correct than they are about being right! Typical of the far left thinking going on in our schools.

[mckreck]

Fair enough. And remember that the expulsion hearing hasn't happened yet, so he may not be expelled at all. I kind of don't think he will be, but the fact he mentioned Columbine in passing may seal his fate.

[FReepaholic]

...A student at a public high school ... faces an expulsion hearing next week.... The hearing has been called because the student posted on his blog at xanga.com that his district, District 202, had bullied and threatened him. ...

Looks to me like the school just proved the kids' point.