Lawrence+W+Online+Comm+Free+Speech+Essay

I do not believe that schools have the right to limit the speech of students and penalize them for what is said online. If a student is at the mall and he says something about a teacher, he's not going to be punished for it. However, if he creates a blog entry about htis teacher online, he deserves to be punished? What is the difference? It also states in one of the articles that Pamela Brown doesn't want teachers "walking to their cars after school in fear, looking over their shoulders". Since when does a ranting about a teacher online ever turn into an act of violence? People thought that what this girl did was serious enough for a three-day suspension. I don't think it was serious at all. She was just stating her opinion, and was asking for others. I think that you should be allowed to state your opinion online on whatever you like, as long as you don't write any threats or anything serious like an act of violence. If there is no obvious threat, it should be left alone. Now, if you put on your website tons of information about the teacher so that other people can use it to get back at the teacher, that is going to far. Like putting pictures of the teacher's house and his/her address, or putting what times they are out of the house and if their kids are home or not. That is a serious issue and should not be allowed. But just writing how you feel about the teacher is something that I feel doesn't cross any border. I do think that schools have the right to limit what kind of speech goes on inside the school, because that's different. If a student says something about a teacher, and that teacher is in the school, or even standing near you, that is a problem. However, I don't feel that expressing your thought about a teacher in school is enough to give you a three-day suspension. Doing that is just going to make that person hate the teacher more. I think teachers over react, and should talk to the students about what is wrong, and what they could possibly do to help. If nothing can be done, then the student should still be allowed to write or say how he feels, "outside" of the school. Overall, I don't think that what these two girls did was all that serious enough to give them the consequences that they recieved. All they did was express how they felt about a teacher, and the teachers automatically takes this as a threat against them. This usually just means that the student is mad at the teacher. I think that things can be worked out so that the two people understand each other. Instead, the teacher has to automatically take it as a threat and do whatever it takes to make sure the student is punished for something they didn't actually do. I don't think that these teachers were very smart about the situation, and they didn't really think things through before they took action.