Back in April, an 8th grade girl was suspended for writing a gory tale about her classmates. See the story info here
…and here
…and here
Apparently, she has taken the issue to federal court and it is pending a verdict at this time. So tell me, what do you think?
Your links didn’t work. If it’s the news story I remember, I think school is going overboard. Who among us hasn’t had some thoughts that would be illegal/immoral/dangerous/disgusting if acted out? To assume that expression of thought must be taken as intent to act is, IMO, stupid.
I, too, believe the school was too rash in their decision. However, had I written a story like that for school, I certainly would have used fake names for the characters, even if they were based on my teachers and classmates.
:smack: And I used the “http://” button and everything. Here are the text links, for your pasting pleasure:
Thank you… I send an email to have the links fixed… not sure what I did wrong on that one!
Thank you yojimbo !
Funny, I was just having a “discussion” about this with the eldest Kunilou kid this morning.
I believe there’s more here than meets the eye. It was a dumb thing for the girl to use the real names of classmates in the story. Should she then have been given the opportunity to rewrite the story in a less threatening way? Perhaps she was, but according to my daughter’s version of the story, she had already given the story to friends and it had been spread around school.
If you’re 13-14 years old and there’s a paper being spread around school about how you and some of your classmates are going to be killed, how comfortable would that make you?
So, did the student act like a jerk when the school administration talked to her? Did she give copies of the story to her friends before or after they talked to her. Did she apologize to the students named in the story, and was she sincere? None of that is in the stories in the links.
As for the mother’s lawsuit, good luck with that. Long before Columbine the courts had ruled (and have consistently reaffirmed) that schools can limit students’ free speech rights, for a whole host of reasons.
at first blush it looks to me like another case of public schools squelching creativity and individuality…
– -- John Mohan, the lawyer for the Union R-XI School District
Can’t have what? Creative writing/thinking? Having read the articles, It seems to me that the girl heard a classmate saying he wanted to slit the teacher’s throat… then she wrote a story about that scenario in which she and her friends capture the killer… sounds more like a murder/mystery than an evil plot to me.
Note to Union School powers that be:
Ease Up!
Free speech rights are one thing but to bring a story to school that describes a series of gory murders involving named classmates is pretty damn close to stepping over the “yelling fire in a crowded theatre line” (IMO). If a boy bought a story to school, obviously set in the school, where my daughter was named as the victim of violent and gory murder, I would want his ass tossed out ASAP.
Some principals go nuts ashering to the letter of the law re suspensions, but in this case there are common sense limits to speech in school environments, and I don’t blame the school for drawing them in this case.
I was of two minds on this one as well…
My cool mom self says it’s just a story, kids have to express themselves, no harm - no foul.
On the other hand… if a classmate of my childs was the one writing the story, I would be upset… irrational? perhaps.
I heard the attorney for the girl on the radio this morning and he made it sound like she didn’t bring the story to school, she emailed it to a few of her friends & it was ‘stolen’ and then passed around. I think a warning may have been appropriate but a suspension seems pretty heavy handed.
Hmmm, so students are not allowed to write murder mysteries at all, ever, in school or elsewhere (Doesn’t seem as she even wrote the story in school, only that it was read by other students at that school), as long as the names of those involved are of fellow student’s faculty?
If she had written it about merry, pippin, and frodo (provided there were no merrys in that school) it would have been fine?
Hmmmmm…
You nnd to read the links
So if we both worked in the same company, and I brought a story to work describing a fantasy rape scene involving you, a toilet plunger, Frodo Baggins and a well hung orc, and circulated it privately among colleagues, but “oops” somehow it got into the wrong hands, that’s my protected private speech right?
Wake up people and take responsibility for your actions. OK, OK, you’re just a kid, but hey a suspension might, just might, make you think next time.
Folks, the jury has spoken, and the suspension continues.
See folks, this is why it sucks to be a school administrator. If the principal in question had dismissed this as “just a story” and this kid acutally did something violent, this incident would be labeled as an obvious warning sign that the girl was dangerous. People would be howling for the principal’s head on a platter for not taking action. But since she did take action, people are screaming about the repressive totalitarian regime she’s running.
You’re fucked up the ass if you do, and you’re fucked up the ass with a sharp stick if you don’t.
Remember, the guys at Columbine, Paducah, and Pearl were all harmless dorks blowing off steam…until they started shooting people.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know what the second suspension is for?
Pretty much the same thing happened in my high school. A friend of mine started a writing project (not for school, just for fun) with some friends. I believe it was actually an N’Sync fanfic. They each wrote their own story, inserting themselves into the events. I read part of one, it was pretty bad. My friend had been writing her story and posting it to her website as she went.
Anyway, she printed out a couple pages and showed them to a friend at school. In her part of the story, two of her real-life friends shot each other. The other girls didn’t like that turn of events and instead of giving constructive criticism, they complained to the principal that my friend was “threatening to kill” them. She was a really nice girl, her “friends” had just tired of her and were looking for a way to ditch her. Such nice girls, ugh.
Within minutes, the principal was demanding that she take down her website and threatening to suspend her. It was an ugly mess, and she was eventually able to get out of it unpunished, but I thought it was ridiculous for the school to get involved to the extent it did, especially demanding she take down her website. That wasn’t any of their business.
All I have to say about the story in the OP is that I’m glad nobody ever read the horror stories I wrote in elementary school - I’d be in a mental institution by now.
I can’t find anything on that… I was curious as well. This makes it sound like a 20 day suspension was issued. I wonder if they will make her serve the last 10 days.