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3 Ohio Teens Sue High School for Facebook 'Parody' IDing Teach


sox4lifeinPA
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yes, you read that right...the STUDENTS are suing.

 

 

if this were me, and as a teacher all you have IS your name, I would sue the parents of the kids back to the stone age.

 

 

 

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CINCINNATI — Three teenagers have sued school officials over lengthy suspensions they received for setting up a Facebook page that identifies a teacher as a pedophile.

 

The entry on the social networking site included the face and last name of the teacher and referred to him as a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which supports sex between men and boys.

 

"They're not saying it's true, they're saying it's just parody," the students' attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

 

The boys were suspended from Taylor High School for the maximum 90 days for creating the entry in November. They've served 10 days and were told the rest of the punishment would begin Jan. 2, when classes resume after the holiday break.

 

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ordered school officials to let them return pending a hearing on the lawsuit Jan. 10.

 

"Each of the boys has written an apology to the teacher and questioned whether they exercised their best judgment," their attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

 

The students and their parents filed the federal lawsuit Dec. 14 after the Three Rivers School District board voted to uphold the punishment.

 

They argue that the Facebook entry should be considered protected speech because it was parody. The plaintiffs also allege the district overstepped its bounds because the Web page was created away from school with access limited to seven people, Mezibov said.

 

District officials wouldn't comment but have said allowing the students to remain in school would cause unspecified disruptions and hurt teacher morale. The district said 14 teachers had already requested their photos be removed from district Web sites. The teacher photo on Facebook was copied from a district site.

 

The students want to be reinstated, their disciplinary actions deleted from their records and the district ordered to pay their attorney fees and unspecified damages.

 

There have similar cases across Ohio and the country, said Scott Greenwood, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. Courts have ruled that students can't be punished by schools for such off-campus acts and that such suspensions violate free speech, he said.

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Let the kids come back to school.

 

Then, let the kids get hit with a defamation of character lawsuit.

 

1) We wonder why people don't want to go into the teaching profession and then get stories like this.

 

2) The parents of these 'precious little snowflakes' suing because their children nearly ruined a man's professional career and put a chilling effect on the career of other teachers in that building -- as 14 have asked for their pictures to be removed -- What balls!

 

3) Have a meeting with the kids, the parents, their lawyers and a few sweet smelling tort litigation lawyers. Tell the parents that if they win their lawsuit, to expect a huge demand in a libel/slander lawsuit. The idea that this was parody is laughable (not a pun).

 

This is a malicious attack that they started. This could have put the guy in jail & ruined his teaching career forever. It would follow him forever & this guy's life would have been ruined because 7 kids have a problem with studying & authority figures.

 

90 days is not harsh enough. Nothing dies on the internet. 90 days is a f***ing joke and a lenient suspension for what these children did. The fact that these parents are trying to tell their children that "crying wolf" and alleging that a teacher is a pedophile/pederast is okay + that the punishment is too strong is f***ing ridiculous.

 

/waits for Tex to defend these parents as being involved in their childrens' educations + wanting to have their voice heard in the district since they help to pay for the district to work.

//that previous slashie would probably only be half-green

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LCR :lolhitting

 

What a hypocrite. I guess freedom of speech stops when it involves teachers. You supported Larry Flynt slandering Jerry Falwell that reached hundreds of thousands of people, but something that exactly 7 people had access to is a problem?! :lolhitting Seriously :lolhitting You are cracking me up.

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QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 06:53 PM)
LCR :lolhitting

 

What a hypocrite. I guess freedom of speech stops when it involves teachers. You supported Larry Flynt slandering Jerry Falwell that reached hundreds of thousands of people, but something that exactly 7 people had access to is a problem?! :lolhitting Seriously :lolhitting You are cracking me up.

If if was just 7 people, it would have never leaked out.

 

And if it is not a big deal, please provide a picture of yourself so I can make a profile of you with affiliations of NAMBLA associated to it and put it out on the net.

 

Not so funny now is it?

 

PS: Tex, Flynt said that Falwell had sex with his mother in an outhouse while drunk. No reasonable person would find that to be believable.

 

However, given the insanity related to teacher sex stories being publicized and the fantastic attention being paid to any sort of accusations about sexual misconducts, a reasonable person could believe that this teacher may have been doing something underhanded.

 

That is where the swift difference comes in with your false dichotomy that you so neatly created. But nice try.

Edited by LowerCaseRepublican
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Funny how a religious leader, something you have always mocked, gets torched and that's ok. But whatever. I feel better being consistent. I think what the kids did was wrong and should be punished.

 

Someday you may see your hypocrisy and defend those you do not agree with. Someday you may hold everyone to the same standard. But I doubt it.

 

The world according to LCR

 

Teachers are not to be challenged or any outside oversight

Teachers are not to be the subject of parody

LCR is a teacher.

LCR dishes it out but can't take it.

Heil Teachers :notworthy

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QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 08:16 PM)
Funny how a religious leader, something you have always mocked, gets torched and that's ok. But whatever. I feel better being consistent. I think what the kids did was wrong and should be punished.

 

Someday you may see your hypocrisy and defend those you do not agree with. Someday you may hold everyone to the same standard. But I doubt it.

 

The world according to LCR

 

Teachers are not to be challenged or any outside oversight

Teachers are not to be the subject of parody

LCR is a teacher.

LCR dishes it out but can't take it.

Heil Teachers :notworthy

Ok, Tex.

 

Give me a photo. Let me set up a site with your picture and it says you have inappropriate actions with children. Then, let's see how it affects your Boy Scout career.

 

I am going by the legal standpoint -- parody does not exist when a reasonable person believes the false statements to be accurate and reasonable. While I applaud the ACLU taking the case, the parody argument, legally, doesn't hold water -- and the kids are damn lucky that they aren't getting hit with a defamation of character lawsuit.

 

And nice job being a mod and personally attacking posters -- so much that you put words into my mouth to make the straw man that you have so much fun knocking down. How pathetic.

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Slandering someone who is innocent should get you suspended.

 

They could have killed his teaching career and his personal reputation; all because they "didn't like him".

 

Teachers need to be able to be trusted and respected or they have nothing.

Anyone who is a teacher or leader should realize that.

 

Has no one learned anything from Duke LaCrosse about wrongful accusations?

 

 

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QUOTE(knightni @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 08:46 PM)
Slandering someone who is innocent should get you suspended.

 

They could have killed his teaching career and his personal reputation; all because they "didn't like him".

 

Teachers need to be able to be trusted and respected or they have nothing.

Anyone who is a teacher or leader should realize that.

 

Has no one learned anything from Duke LaCrosse about wrongful accusations?

Slap the word parody on the wrongful allegations and some here will be right there defending Nifong and those other clowns.

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QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 06:53 PM)
but something that exactly 7 people had access to is a problem?!

More than 7 people definitely saw the group, though. Only 7 people may have joined the group, but I'm sure tons of kids were "invited" to join it, but turned it down b/c it's messed up to publicly make fun of someone in the manner they did. Plus, the group name would show up in the kids' facebook profiles, visible to all their friends and/or people in their "network", a number that is probably in the hundreds or thousands.

 

It's the lawyer trying to put spin on how many people saw the group by only giving the number of people that joined the group. Like I said, hundreds or maybe even thousands (depending on how big their "Network" is and how many other "friends" they have) could have seen this group.

Edited by dasox24
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QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 08:39 PM)
Ok, Tex.

 

Give me a photo. Let me set up a site with your picture and it says you have inappropriate actions with children. Then, let's see how it affects your Boy Scout career.

 

I am going by the legal standpoint -- parody does not exist when a reasonable person believes the false statements to be accurate and reasonable. While I applaud the ACLU taking the case, the parody argument, legally, doesn't hold water -- and the kids are damn lucky that they aren't getting hit with a defamation of character lawsuit.

 

And nice job being a mod and personally attacking posters -- so much that you put words into my mouth to make the straw man that you have so much fun knocking down. How pathetic.

 

You called me out in your original post. You are such a hypocrite when it comes to teachers.

 

If you bothered to notice, I said what the kids did was wrong and should be punished. But keep ignoring that statement.

 

What they posted was wrong, just like Flynt. You talk about freedom of speech, civil disobedience, but when it comes to teachers WHOA!!!! Stay away, they are so maligned, so much stress. B.S. my girlfriend has been a teacher for twenty years and my best friend for almost thirty. I show them your posts and they laugh at your naivetés and self righteous b.s.

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QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 09:39 PM)
You called me out in your original post. You are such a hypocrite when it comes to teachers.

 

If you bothered to notice, I said what the kids did was wrong and should be punished. But keep ignoring that statement.

 

What they posted was wrong, just like Flynt. You talk about freedom of speech, civil disobedience, but when it comes to teachers WHOA!!!! Stay away, they are so maligned, so much stress. B.S. my girlfriend has been a teacher for twenty years and my best friend for almost thirty. I show them your posts and they laugh at your naivetés and self righteous b.s.

Talk about self righteousness. Look in the goddamn mirror (or perhaps at your previous post) But then, keep telling us how much better you are than others here.

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QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 10:57 PM)
Talk about self righteousness. Look in the goddamn mirror (or perhaps at your previous post) But then, keep telling us how much better you are than others here.

Not better, just consistent.

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Texsox.

 

Falwell is a public personality. Therefore in order for him to be defamed it had to be with malice.

 

The teacher in this question is not a public personality. Plus this is defamation per se because it involves allegations of sexual misconduct.

 

Now the question of parody comes in....

 

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech...c=parody_satire

 

Im failing to see how this is a "parody".

 

But then again I havent seen the sit

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I do not see it as a parody, nor did I find the Flynt/Falwell as a parody. I thought Flynt stepped over the line, same as these kids. And because of that, LCR would like my picture so he can do a parody of me.

 

Give me a photo. Let me set up a site with your picture and it says you have inappropriate actions with children. Then, let's see how it affects your Boy Scout career.

:blink:

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Tex,

 

I dont agree on Flynt.

 

The parody was a spoof on a series of ads for Campari Liqueur. In small print at the bottom of the ad were the words, “ad parody — not to be taken seriously.” The table of contents for that issue of the magazine listed the ad as “Fiction; Ad and Personality Parody.” Falwell sued for libel, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

 

If your going to be a public personality, you are putting yourself in the spot light, you are going to get the postitive and negative attention.

 

Im one of the biggest supporters of First Amendment, but unless there is something missing these kids didnt write a parody.

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Falwell's mom, the subject as well, is not a public figure. She was accused of incest in Flynt's parody. Any defense for her? All the kids had to do was place a picture of Michael Jackson in the parody and all's well?

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And here's LCR's logic in the Prince of Tides case. The parents should not have sued because all the publicity causes more kids to read the book. Why isn't he saying the school and teacher should not have taken action because now more people now about the case?

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It's one thing as a parent to try and look out for your kids and help them out of bad situations, but to go to court because your kids were asshole enough to try and ruin someone's career because they didn't like him is just wrong. These parents should have talked to the schools and try to get the punishment reduced or whatever, and then STFU. Maybe teach thier bratty kids that actions have consequences, and you f*** with someones livelyhood, you could get burned yourself. I wonder how many other incidents llike this these kids have done previously? Or how many times mommy and daddy have bailed them out of jail, or paid some fines, etc.? These boys and the parents need to be smacked with a HUGE lawsuit. And just smacked, period.

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