S: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42341Back to knuckle fights instead
By Nick Farrell: Friday 14 September 2007, 07:34
KIDS GOING BACK to school in Arlington, Texas, were given a one page contract to sign this week.
The contract demanded that they not send harassing e-mails to other students, or send any instant-messaging, or send offensive digital pictures, download video footage or hack into another student's e-mail account.
The Big Brother contract threatened that the school would be monitoring their computer usage to make sure that the kids complied. It added that from now on nothing they did online was private.
The Chicago Tribune cited the case as an example of schools cracking down on cyber bullies.
States including Rhode Island, Arkansas, Oregon have proposed legislation that would make cyber-bullying between students illegal or subject to expulsion or prosecution. However the laws are getting a bit big brotherish and, not surprisingly, parents and kids are saying that they are breeching their constitutional rights.
Rhode Island - for example - will prosecute the student and their parents if the kid is caught sending Internet or text messages that prove disruptive to school from home.
This includes stuff they send from private computers during non-school hours. In fact the person in question can have left school years ago and just vented his spleen about his school days in a blog.
In Oregon, politicians have backed a bill that would require all schools to adopt policies that ban cyberbullying and allow for expulsion of those who are caught doing it.
None of these new laws have been tested in court and lawyers say that the whole idea might be difficult to implement if the kids keep suing their schools into a coma.
Case law usually favours the kids rather than the person complaining. US courts are reluctant to get involved because everyone knows that kids are little psychos as they grow up. Someone who hates their school and posts about it will turn into a decent adult. Even bullies go on to have normal lives.
Some become teachers.
Shouldn't kids learn to stick up to their internet bullies?