The ACLU is protesting disciplinary actions taken against high school students in Warwick, Rhode Island.
The students tweeted something negative about State Superintendent Deborah Gist. Whatever they tweeted was not reported in this story.
The story said: “Several students called Gist names on Twitter following a story in the Journal in which about 35 adults took a portion of the New England Common Assessment or NECAP, deeming it very difficult. Several questioned if should be linked to high school graduation.”
Some of the students tweeted on school time. Some tweeted from home.
At a time when school officials are breaking the budget to put all students online, policing what they say online is going to be a full-time job for someone.
You have to wonder whose job it is now to follow Twitter and scrutinize what students are saying.
One of the comments said that the state test should include the study of the Constitution.
Since when did it become illegal or bad behavior to criticize government officials?
Wasn’t Roger Williams a founding father of Rhode Island? Wasn’t it founded as a refuge for religious and political dissent? When did Rhode Island become a state that punishes dissenters?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tinker v. Des Moines – students free speech rights do not stop “at the school house door.”
Tinker v. Des Moines
Denial of Freedom of Expression Must Be Justified by a Reasonable Forecast
of Substantial Disruption
Were they tweeting criticism, or were they simply hurling insults?
Doesn’t make a difference.
There are many legal ways of punishing dissenters- especially in education.
Too true unfortunately…
I’ve also learned in NY State that free speech does not extend feely to the work place.
One can comment about and critique an employer outside the scope of one’s employment as a private citizen, but NOT while on the job or in forums and venues that stem from the job, such as the place of employment itself or as remote as an off site-employee e-mail.
Free speech is somewhat misunderstood by many in this country. And it varies from state to state to an alarming extent.
I would love to know exactly what was tweeted, from the very first tweet to the very last one before the school stepped in and “intervened”.
I’m going to tweet mean things about Deborah Gist. Come and get me.
Go for it…feel free to include Murdoch, Klein, Bush, Duncan, etc…
Here’s a few tweets: 1. You’re a bully @deborahgist
https://twitter.com/crobinsonxo/status/312584860109766656
2. @deborahgist I also think we don’t teach our students how to survive in the real world and make money, only how to pass a standardized test.
Nikhil,
Do you think tweets are protected speech?
Those tweets are disagreeable but not malicious.
A test that is too difficult is invalid. If the test plays into someone’s disability and prevents one from getting a diploma, it is discrimination plain and simple. If a disabled student works hard, passes classroom-based tests with appropriate accommodations throughout the high school years, that student deserves a diploma. This is equivalent to the 15th Amendment, which gave Afro-Americans the right to vote being subverted through literacy tests that even 19th century lawyers were unable to pass.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Gist firing all the Central Falls teachers—– now that was mean.
she has one of those creepy corporate looks to her that just screams for a Boston cream pie right in the kisser!
This is scarier than all the testing malarky… we need to guard the first amendment with all the zeal the NRA uses to protect the second amendment! We’ve already indoctrinated kids that walking through metal detectors is OK, that carrying a coded ID card with a tracking chip is OK, being checked over by a good guy with a gun to gain entry to school is OK, being videotaped 24-7 is OK… now we’re going to convince them that their email communication and tweets will be monitored? We’re moving in the wrong direction in the name of protection…
Punishing students for what they write online is a growing issue, and one that the Journalism Education Association and the Student Press Law Center are contesting. Sometimes, school officials punish the students under the guise of punishing bullying, a laughable thought! I urge readers to go SPLC.org to see how common this is becoming, and to see what the SPLC is doing about it.
I’m a teacher in Warwick and it’s clear some of you do not know the content of some of those tweets. This is not a free speech issue and not an issue for the ACLU. The students who were punished, were punished not because of their dissenting opinion, they were punished because of the vulgarity used in the tweets… tweets they sent during class time. If a student approached a teacher with an expletive laden attack, that student would be punished either by suspension or detention. Conversely, the students who tweeted after class time were not punished. The fact that parents and other adults attempt to condone such language under the farce of a free speech argument speaks volumes to where our society is at the moment. Instead of making an argument based on what you think “free speech” is do a little research. Throughout the existence of the our constitutional form of government, the Supreme Court has ruled that there are limits to free speech. Try reading the actual document and related rulings before shouting nonsense about your first amendment rights!