A federal judge says Colgate University can be liable for falsely imprisoning a student awaiting a disciplinary hearing but can't be sued for violating his constitutional rights, because private businesses aren't subject to the Constitution.
Tag: Due Process-Discipline
New school year? There’s a few things your newsroom should be doing
It's the first month of school for most students, which is a good time to take a look at policies or procedures that may have changed over the summer break without much notice.
Louisville student’s sarcastic delivery-room blog births a bad First Amendment outcome
Posting on social media about stuff you see at work is risky business. When you're enrolled in college, it's downright hazardous.The University of Minnesota disciplined a mortuary science student who made flippant remarks on Facebook about the corpse she was assigned to dissect.
N.J. court: Schools can’t withhold extracurriculars to play “good behavior police” for off-campus misconduct
When schools seek to punish students' off-campus behavior on blogs and social networking sites, their "penalty of choice" often is revoking students' eligibility for sports, honor societies and other extracurricular activities.That's because judges generally have given schools almost unlimited latitude to decide who may take part in after-school clubs that aren't considered central to the free public education to which every student is legally entitled.But a new ruling from a New Jersey appellate court torpedoes that distinction, and calls into question schools' widespread practice of withholding extracurricular activities to punish uncivil speech on the Web.In G.D.M.
GUEST COLUMN: Missouri Maneater April Fool’s controversy offers “teaching moment” for school disciplinary authorities
Dead On Arrival–that was the status of the letter from the Office of Student Conduct to The Maneater’s editors caught up in the April Fools’ foolishness. Everyone I talked to at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, from the dean on down, was incensed by the notion of disciplinary action against the student editors.And don’t forget the university’s own legal-staff members. Some of them still feel the burn from the U.S.
Appeals court: Former Valdosta State student’s civil rights lawsuit will continue [Updated]
Updated 2/8 by Nick Glunt, SPLC staff writer. Original post by Frank LoMonte.A former Georgia college student who was expelled after he crusaded against the college president's parking-garage project can recover damages for violations of his constitutional rights, a federal appeals court decided Tuesday.The 11th U.S.
Federal court says Nev. student’s instant messages no laughing matter
At a comedy club, a bad joke can get you booed. At school, a bad joke can get you expelled.Landon Wynar was a student at Nevada’s Douglas County High School in 2008 when he and a friend had several Internet conversations in which he discussed shooting schoolmates and compared himself to Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman behind the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.
“Sentenced” to write essay, videographer challenges fairness of UC-Berkeley disciplinary board
Considering that Josh Wolf had already spent seven months of his young journalistic career in jail, the "sentence" he received for his latest clash with the law might have seemed about as harsh as a Bart Simpson chalkboard apology.Still, Wolf continues contesting the penalty imposed by the University of California-Berkeley for his failure to leave a campus building while videotaping an anti-tuition-hike demonstration in November 2009: A five-page paper analyzing the rights of student journalists on campus and recommending disciplinary policies to avoid First Amendment clashes like the one that landed him in hot water."It was never about my punishment or my case at all," Wolf said Tuesday, discussing his decision to appeal.
Want odds worse than playing against a casino with loaded dice? Try appealing a school disciplinary decision.
Jaw-dropping statistic of the month...A group of Fairfax County, Va., parents that is crusading for reform to their suburban school district's disciplinary system used the Virginia Open Records Act to find out how well students fare when they appeal the punishment they receive.Out of 5,025 cases over the past six years that went to a district-level appeal hearing, students were successful in getting disciplinary penalties overturned exactly zero times, according to the parents' compilation. That's right, 0-for-5,025.Even casinos let people win sometimes.
Kansas student wins due process case; still sentenced to go through life as “Facebook placenta girl”
It is now recognized as illegal in the state of Kansas to summarily expel a college student just for posting a photo of herself on Facebook next to a placenta.