I respect your points. But the Board abused its power — they took action against a student because her words were against them personally.
Would the Board have acted the same if she called you or I douche-bag on her blog? I seriously doubt it.
At best, you or I could have filed a libel case against the girl — and it would have been thrown out by any competent judge.
> I respect your points.
And likewise, I respect yours.
> But the Board abused its power — they took action against a student because her words were against them personally.
True — I’ll concede that.
An alternative punishment could have been to abolish the Student Government altogether for that year, “because we felt like it”. As it isn’t a part of the core curriculum there’s not a darn thing anyone could say about that — it would not have singled her out for punishment, and it would be grossly unfair to all the rest of the student body.
Perhaps the school principal should have considered that course of action instead. If he’s going to abuse his power arbitrarily, do it properly and thoroughly, and leave no fingerprints. Let her peers sort it out with her once it becomes known that she is the cause of no Student Government this year.
Group punishments were used commonly when I was in school: they were always unpleasant for the group, but always much moreso for the perpetrator: the group made sure of that.
> Would the Board have acted the same if she called you or I douche-bag on her blog? I seriously doubt it.
Probably they wouldn’t. The big difference between calling me a Douche-bag and calling the Principal a Douche-bag is that she does not have to have a good healthy working relationship with me, should she become a member of the Student Government. She does need to have a good healthy working relationship with the Principal: it’s a pre-requisite. By showing this contempt and disrespect for the Principal, it can be argued that she has eroded any chance of a healthy working relationship beyond reconciliation, and thus has disqualified herself from Student Government.