Hey ACLU: This Is No Victory For Free Speech
Posted on May 3, 2006
The Toledo Blade slices up the ACLU.
A 14-year-old girl was expected back in class this week, little more than a month after she rattled suburban Springfield Middle School by using a popular Internet site to post personal profiles of a teacher and assistant principal that not only were false but can only be described as pornographic.
Let’s hope that the girl, her parents, the school district, and even the American Civil Liberties Union have learned something from this distressing episode, which is more about common decency than it is free speech.
The girl, an eighth grade honor student who had never been in trouble before, shocked the Springfield Local community by impersonating the female teacher and the male administrator in graphic sexual profiles on the Web site MySpace.com, which ironically describes itself as “a place for friends.”
In bland terms — the actual vile phraseology doesn’t belong in a family newspaper — the girl portrayed the educators as sexual predators trolling for children. When school officials suspended her and threatened expulsion, the ACLU intervened, claiming it was merely a “joke gone awry.”
The school board, advised by its attorney that it was looking at three to five years of litigation with a six-figure cost, reluctantly backed off last week and reinstated her.
As a newspaper, we are naturally partial to the constitutional right of free speech. But this is one of those cases that stretches that cherished right to the breaking point without concern for the responsibility that comes with it.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, News
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6 Responses to “Hey ACLU: This Is No Victory For Free Speech”
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Gosh..do we smell a bit of Victory here?..awooooo!..good decision and perhaps others wont be so quick to defame ..14 years old…sigh.
Unless I’m missing something here, there’s no reason to celebrate. I read the article and ACLU won in the end, albeit through the initmidation of a long drawn out trail and six figure legal fees.
Rather than fight the ACLU, the school board gave her only 6 weeks suspension with tax paid tutor assistance.
Where is the victory for ACLU? The school board caved in the end due to the financial burden of taking on the ACLU.
I should rename the title.
Fantastic! Again the good ‘ole ACLU defends the rights of the wrongfully oppressed!
What a wonderful lesson learned by this child and her peers: It’s okay to publicly defame anyone’s reputation and bring grief upon that person’s family and friends because there’s a powerful, wealthy, Godless group of lawyers out there who will rally to your defense. After all, you can’t be held accountable for your actions, it’s society that made you that way and your only ‘crime’ is that you exercised your freedom of speech, something most commendable! Good girl!
Jay,
Whoops! I see several typos in my comment, the worse being:
“Where is the victory for the ACLU?”
I meant where is the defeat of the ACLU?
Thanks for the article. I posted on my blog regarding this atrocity against common decency, courtesy of the Atheist Communist Litigation Union (ACLU), and gave a hat tip with link back here.
You guys rock!!! Please don’t stop your fight against such a vile organization as the ACLU.
They aren’t doing America any favors and they sure as heck aren’t protecting the First Ammendment rights of anyone.
They are defending the vile and criminals in our society and enabling them to continue with their crimes.
But, of course that is not what they would like to be proclaimed.
Just so I get it…according to the ACLU, we now have the right to steal peoples identities in order slander them and portray them as criminals?
Just checking…