Judge Rules Against School's Web Rules (Upholds Student Inciting Violence on Internet)

Newsday ^

[DaughterofEve]

The Waterford School District should not have suspended the student in August 2001 for contributing to "Satan's Web page," U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan ruled this week.

School officials were concerned by content that included a passage labeled "Satan's mission for you this week." It read: "Stab someone for no reason then set them on fire throw them off of a cliff, watch them suffer and with their last breath, just before everything goes black, spit on their face."

[DaughterofEve]

From my browsing on the web, it isn't this judge's FIRST inane ruling, either. Anyone more acquainted with the situation care to comment?

[chachacha]

U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan

Another reason why 60 years of libealism is to blame for our Nations downhill slide into the abyss.

[Glockslinger]

That's my wonderful state for you. What do you expect from the home of Michael Moore?

[Always Right]

It read: "Stab someone for no reason then set them on fire throw them off of a cliff, watch them suffer and with their last breath, just before everything goes black, spit on their face."

Lucky for the kid he was talking about murder. If the kid had suggested that homosexuality was a choice, the kid would be serving 5-10 at the local jail.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Well, there was no one specifically threatened and apparently, this was not done using school equipment or on school time.

Here's the upside: If this case had gone the other way, it wouldn't be long before some left-wing principal found out they had a student active on FreeRepublic and tried to have them thrown out of school for "hate speech" or some such claim like that.

[DaughterofEve]

Being from New York, I can't throw stones!

[Dan from Michigan]

Judge is right.

This is none of the SCHOOL's business. The school should only have ANY juristiction in the school or at school sponsored events, period.

Now if there were threats, maybe it should be a POLICE matter, but not a SCHOOL matter. School administrators have a bad habit of sticking their noses were it don't belong anyway. If it is a threat, then call the cops and let them handle it.

Kudo's to Judge Duggan.

[monday]

Please explain why this is any of the school districts business. There is such a thing as free speech in this country. How would you feel if your boss decided to fire you because he/she found out you were posting on FR?

This judgement was a no brainer. Any other ruling would have been unconstitutional.

[Hoppean]

I agree with a lot of the other posters so far--the web postings really were no one's business, and any rulings against the student could easily be twisted in other cases to suppress sites like FR, etc.

There was no specific threats made against any particular individuals, it was just abstract comments about "someone."

He could have easily said something like, "Invent a device that will drill down to the core of the earth and generate an explosive chain reaction that will cause the planet to be obliterated." No one would take that seriously; nothing to get worked up about. I'm surprised it all got that far in the first place with the suspensions and trials and all that.

[DaughterofEve]

Well, I'm still glad a loved one or I, or anyone else... didn't happen to be a "non-particular" individual that might have been affected by someone's "inspiration" from that site! I thought it was an overall interesting situation worth an exchange of opinions or commentary here.

[Hoppean]

Well, I'm still glad a loved one or I, or anyone else... didn't happen to be a "non-particular" individual that might have been affected by someone's "inspiration" from that site!

I've heard people say that can happen, but I always wonder if a person who would read something and be "set off" by it isn't already a nut anyway, and if it weren't that website that acted as "the trigger," it'd be something else.

Maybe there's more to it, though, that I'm missing and it is serious. I'd have to look more at the website, context, etc., but I didn't see any mention of a URL to link to. We only get a little snippet from the news article.

I thought it was an overall interesting situation worth an exchange of opinions or commentary here.

Me too, thanks for posting the article.

[DaughterofEve]

I agree, it would certainly be a trigger situation. But one less negative trigger situation would be okay with me, simply put!

I don't post articles that often but when I do it's more because I see room for an interesting FR discussion or review, it doesn't make me (or anyone else that posts!) an expert or necessarily a die-hard on the situation. (Although some are, heaven forfend I diss one of the FR geniuses! They're fun to read.)

Thanks for the response!