Principal sues kids and parents over MySpace postings
Summary: A landmark suit that tries to establish a parental duty to monitor teens' MySpace postings.
MySpace can look a bit like "Lord of the Flies" when it comes to unregulated teen gossip. At one high school in Texas, an assistant principal, who was the brunt of some nasty rumors posted by students on a MySpace page, is filing suit against the students and their parents, reports Ars Technica.
Anna Draker, who works at Clark High School in San Antonio, is suing over comments made on MySpace that contained "obscene comments, pictures and graphics." The kids also claimed she was a lesbian, which she has denied. Draker knows the kids who posted the remarks and knew they had some animosity toward her, but didn't think that it would go that far.
There have been defamation suits regarding MySpace before but none that claimed parents are negligent for failing to supervise their children. The lawsuit will put to test whether parents have a duty to know what their children are up to.
"Allowing access to the Internet, unsupervised and without restraint, poses an obvious and unreasonable danger that such children would utilize the Internet for illicit purposes such as the ones alleged above," says the suit in accusing the parents of "negligent supervision."
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Talkback
These kids just need a good spanking
I'm with you, George...
Robert
It's about time.
These kids do need discipline
I suppose it is partially the schools fault too because they have tolorated bullying and name calling for years with no punishment to the perpetrators.
Time out...I agree with the spanking...
Pull the plug, but kick their butt first & tell them why...
principal sues kids
tired of parents being tired
consciousness, responsibility and accountability
If the comments posted by the students on MySpace had instead been written by their parents or other adults, regardless of the venue, we would not be discussing whether their internet privileges should be revoked or whether they needed to be spanked, and the defamation lawsuit by the school administrator would not be held to the same degree of scrutiny.
At what age do we begin to hold people accountable for their actions? Does it matter that they were high school students? What if they had been college students, or perhaps middle school students? Would that make their irresponsible postings less damaging, or more excusable? I personally think they knew exactly what they were doing, but like many young people on the light side of maturity, failed to consider the consequences or effect of their actions. Or perhaps they felt the anonyminity of MySpace afforded them an effective shield, kind of like sticking out your tongue at a rival from behind the protection of your Mother's skirt.
The Principal deserves her day in court to defend her name and reputation against malicious and libelous slander, no matter what the source or the venue. Whether a Judge or Jury will agree with her remains to be seen, but in any case, the defendants will have a good reminder that they may be held responsible and/or accountable for their actions.
As for the responsibility of the parents involved, I'm a bit ambivalent. On the one hand, I do agree that parents should be responsible for the actions of the minor children in their household. But accountable? I'm not so sure. If my child breaks a neighbor's window, I am responsible for replacing the window. I am also responsible for ensuring that my child apologizes for his/her actions. But if negligence or maliciousness was involved, I will hold my child accountable and exercise an appropriate level of parental discipline in order to impart the lesson that actions imply accountability. With any kind of luck, these lessons will carry over into their adult lives when they are no longer under my roof or control.
Finally, as an unrelated aside and comment for the person who voiced the opinion that school administrators are paid too much already, I strongly disagree (Google average salaries for various professions and occupations and I think you may be surprised) but also wonder what that has to do with the issue of the students' MySpace postings and the Principal's lawsuit.
18
And one more thing.
not true...
And a not true -- to you.
Second off, an attorney can argue that she is a public figure -- her being a public employee, and the children being the public in this case. If that's the case, they can say almost whatever they want about her because the Supreme Court has ruled that those who seek public acceptance can be subject to public ridicule moreso than a private citizen (Cherry v. Des Moines Leader).
So, whether or not something is damaging to a person or organization is of very little consequence. There are three main considerations to a libel suit: Truthfulness, maliciousness and whether or not the person is a public figure.
What's more, even if it was untrue, the children were being malicious and she's ruled to not be a public figure, the judge still has to rule that the parents are liable and that her damages were actually worth something.
Will she sue me for calling her a moron?
First, if we're going to start suing parents for defamatory remarks and circulating nasty illustrations of school administrators, we had better start hiring more judges.
Second, this wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal if the vice principal didn't make it that way. She took this job knowing full well a bunch of little kids would be mean to her. When kids had slates, I'm sure they chalked nasty pictures of their principals and passed them around. Well, now they have MySpace. You chose this job. Deal with it.
Third, this woman took an administrative public job on the public payroll given to public scrutiny. The Supreme Court long ago ruled that public figures do not have the same expectation of privacy and protection from defamation as a private citizen.
Fourth, am I alone in finding it suspect that bad things are more often done to bad people? Are they bad kids? Probably. But during this trial I'll take a guess that some pretty awful truths about her character and professional capabilities will come to light and then we'll more fully understand how this went so far out of hand.
Fifth, her damages are worthless. These remarks won't really damage her career (well, they will now, since we're about to find out some of them are true) because they're from an incredible source. No future employer would reasonably Google her name, find this, and hold it against her. It's the rantings of children, and bad ones at that. The potential for these remarks to have any negative impact at all on her career was extremely limited until she filed this lawsuit.
What a good example she sets as a grown woman suing The Little Rascals. In all, the idea that parents should stand over their kids' shoulders in order to make sure they don't say nasty things about their teachers is pretty far-fetched. She would probably have a much better hope of just kicking the kids out of her school forever but, once she's publicly embarassed while trying to fleece their parents, those hopes will probably go out the window as well.
Bryan