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Nov
23
First, a big hattip to Lary Bloom, who writes Connecticut magazine’s Lary Bloom’s Notebook (not online). You can read more about Lary here, but the best parts: he is from Cleveland, a big Indians fan and was at the Akron Beacon Journal for many years.
It was his column in the December 2007 issue of the magazine, titled, “The ‘D’ Word,” which alerted me to Lewis S. Mills High School student (now senior) Avery Doninger’s lawsuit. The school is in Burlington, CT.
Avery used the “D” word in her livejournal.com blog. Specifically, according to Bloom’s column:
…Avery wrote in livejournal.com, a public forum: “Jamfest is cancelled due to douchebags in central office….” She urged readers to complain to Superintendent [Paula] Schwartz to “piss her off more.”
[Although Avery's case really doesn't have anything to do with the DB plugin, the word that got her in trouble reminded me of it.]
Here’s another very good, specific review of the situation, with a picture of Avery, from a cool site called, CT News Junkie: Because you need it. Bad. Love that tagline.
Here are some legal links from the Media Law Research Center:
Doninger v. Niehoff, No. HHB-CV-07-4014735-S (Conn. Super. Ct., filed July 16, 2007).
Status: Pending
The mother or a high school student sued the principal of her daughter’s school and the superintendent of her school district after they barred her from running for re-election as student secretary after she posted complaints to her blog about a student-planned concert that was cancelled by school administrators.
Here are other good posts:
The State of Student Free Speech 11/12/07
Avery Update: On Why Schools Exist 11/3/07
Event supports Mills high school senior 10/15/07
My biggest problem with all these actions against and between students and administrators is that it seems so antithetical to what adults should be hoping for: to raise people who think critically, aren’t intimidated and express themselves. Teaching people how and when to do that is, of course, also important. But with lawsuits? And shutting down candidacies? Why didn’t the school let the students decide – with their votes – as to whether they thought what Avery did was out of bounds?
What do you think?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:04 pm November 23rd, 2007 in Blogging, Campaigning, Civil Rights, Courts, Culture, Education, Elections, Parenting, Politics
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12 Responses to “H.S. student’s class secretary candidacy tossed due to blog, her mom sues”
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Schools have never been nor never will be democracies. They are top down hierarchies that sometimes allow students to pretend they have some kind of voice. The school referred to above is not going to allow students to vote for someone they prefer to silence.
Long ago, I was editor of my high school newspaper. The principal kept censoring my editorials so I formed a group to put out an underground paper (in the primitive mimeograph publishing days) which landed us in a whole lot of trouble.
The only way to save yourself as a student is to have supportive parents and the ACLU on your side.
I agree with Village Green. This seems so chicken—-. If school staff are that thin skinned that an offhand comment on a blog gets them is such high dudgeon than they show themselves to be the petty despots that, unfortunately, so many school officials tend to be.
But as I wrote on my blog about the whole Morton West dustup:
http://badamerican.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/junior-heroes-in-chicago-area-school/
public schools, in general, aren’t designed to encourage freethinking and social action – quite the opposite – they foster conformity and obedience (Jill – Orange may be an exception and thankfully there are exceptions). In this case, Avery’s lesson is the same as the Morton West’s students’ – the world you are coming of age in will not tolerate dissent toward authority. Learn that now and stay secure in your pursuit of the American Dream(tm). No principles are worth your material security – certainly not something so non-marketable as free speech. I hope her attorneys eviscerate this school system.
Shalom Jill,
I have two thoughts:
First, it’s freedom of the press, i.e. the publisher. In the past, mimeographs not with standing, the administration owned the press.
Second, the veneer between civilization and anarchy is a thin one. Now that students may ridicule educators with impunity, chaos is not far off.
Having said that, I’m on the students’ side in this. Education by brute force has never been a good idea. Only tyrants may rule by fiat and we know how a free society judges tyrants.
B’shalom,
Jeff
All great comments.
Some good technical points in favor of the administrators but I agree that I’d side with the students. In this day, there just has to be a better way to deal with dissent than burying it. It just makes me feel like adults have learned nothing or are unwilling to teach from what they have learned. That just feels so wrong.
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Thanks, Andy. Much appreciated. On the one hand, the case is very, very unfortunate. On the other hand, since I can only imagine that more and more situations already exist and will arise that involve similar facts (people expressing themselves on the Internet and the people being described not liking what’s expressed), I suppose it’s not awful to get some rulings on the boundaries.
What bothers me is that we don’t have enough of a consensus among ourselves as to the boundaries without having to go to court – do you know what I mean?
Regarding boundaries, I have my own which are that I don’t talk about school-related issues on my blog, but I will make comments on education issues on other people’s blogs. Mainly because I started my blog to think about things other than those that fill my daytime hours. And yet, all citizens should be concerned with educational policies. So when other bloggers bring these issues up, I do feel it is ok to chime in.
Has anyone pointed out that the Ohio Dept of Ed has warned teachers not to post on places like MySpace and FaceBook? They didn’t tell us not to use Blogger, so I think I’m ok — for now!
Village – that’s fascinating – do you think it’s the social networking piece that makes the other two more verboten?
I absolutely agree that it is antithetical to what we need. Thinking! What a concept. Schools in my limited experience teaching put up with community and parental involvement not embraced it; and we wonder why communites and parents got uninvolved. And to say this person can’t run again? I just shake my head.
We is on the same page.
Jill,
Thank you for linking to a few of my posts about the Avery Doninger case. Your comment,
gets to one of the key underlying issues that have plagued student freedom of speech cases from the beginning, which I touched upon in my post, The State of Student Free Speech about the goal of public education:
The administration at Lewis Mills High School seems to be firmly in the camp of inculcating community values, and an important value, in their mind, is not questioning people in authority.
There are many interesting issues in this case, but perhaps the most important, at the core, is how we understand ‘authority’.
I agree with you, Aldon. And thanks for taking the time to leave the comment. I’m not that young, but I have kids in elementary and middle school and teaching them how to respect and still use good judgment when it comes to accepting authority is incredibly important to me. There are just too many instances of abuse, I think. I don’t think it’s the rule, but I think we owe it to our kids to teach them discretion and not blind submission.