How about this? Student expelled over rap he wrote

[MarkBarbieri]

This is why I would like us to switch from a public school system to a private school system. I would very much like the school that my children to attend to expel hazardous and disruptive students, like this one appears to be. On the other hand, it disturbs me to see a government agency punishing a kid for his thoughts and expressions. I'd be much more comfortable with a private school setting its own standards and enforcing them.

 

[jeepgirl30]

I agree with the school. I read some of the lyrics. What would people be saying if the situation been swept under the rug and then later turned out to be a real tragedy? People would be screaming the school should have taken action.

Kids need to learn their actions have consequenses.

I can't imagine how I'd feel knowing a classmate of my childs wrote something that hateful and was sitting beside her in class.

Last year in 1st grade my son had to go to the principal and was so disappointed with himself and completely distraught over how much trouble he was in at home. Another boy was pushing him in line causing him to fall out of the line. He kept biting his lip and trying to put his hands in his pocket so he didn't touch the other kid back. DS had a rough week and was really trying to be good. Finally he had enough and told the other boy "stop or i'm gonna kill you". Now my son was 6, unarmed and the smallest in the class. He still got in trouble and had a warning from the principal. I had to be called and sign a paper saying i was informed. I thought it was a bit much but supported the school's position and explained he could not use words like that no matter what.

Yes totally different but where is the line drawn between a 6 year old not being able to control his temper/emotions and overreacting with the wrong choice of words and a high school kid having enough and coming into school with a weapon? Which end of the spectrum was this rap kid? somewhere in the middle? Do you feel safe with that? Do you feel your own child is safe with that?

 

[shortbun]

If only Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would have been suspended for their "out of school writings"

I think they would have acted faster had that happened.
they were bullied. Whole 'nother topic.

 

[Polyluvr]

If only Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would have been suspended for their "out of school writings"

ITA

Sounds like the school did a fine job to me; this kid threatens other students and faculty!?! ~ too bad for him.


If this kid had decided to act on his "rap" and any kids had God forbid gotten hurt or killed?

This is definetly a case of the rights of many outwiegh the individual...

 

[monsterkitty]

I think they would have acted faster had that happened.
they were bullied. Whole 'nother topic.

We have a teacher at my school who was a student with Klebold and Harris. She was in the library that day. Ask her and her friends about Klebold and Harris and the harassment they put up with from the these two.

While I'm not saying Klebold and Harris weren't bullied, I am saying that it was a two-way street. Klebold and Harris weren't about being bullied - it was an excuse, not a reason. They were two very sick individuals and while bullying may have been apart of the problem, it was a small part.

Ask the kids that were in the library that day. Ask the kids in the lang arts class with the two. Ask the kids in math, PE, and science.

It is quite unfortunate that the parents of these two knew about their writings and their bomb making skills, but the school did not. If FB or MySpace would have been around then, 12 students and 1 teacher probably would not have lost their lives.

This school did the right thing to protect the students and staff.

 

[Tiggeroo]

It's a rough call. Maybe the better thing would have been to force them into counseling and home bound until a psych eval could be done. HS students write stupid explosive things. Sometimes it's the real deal and sometimes it's just foolishness and hormones and emotions.

 

[MiniGirl]

Well, many years ago (I'm talking the 1970s) my older brother was expelled from high school 2 weeks before graduation. His crime? He had published and distributed an underground newspaper bad-mouthing all the faculty and staff at his high school. None of it was done on school grounds, but someone did give a copy to someone on the staff. He didn't use any foul, vulgar language, nor did he threaten anyone. He just spoke his mind. Now, this was a parochial school, so maybe that had something to do with it, but yeah, he was expelled for something a lot minor than what this guy wrote.

 

[Scurvy]

Because targeting school faculty, threatening to shoot students, and threatening to burn down the school, is bad whether in school or out of school. If you get busted for it, then you are busted.

He is lucky he is not sitting in jail.

Exactly. I'm usually very opposed to schools being able to punish students for things that happen outside of school, but when it comes to threatening harm to the other students or teachers at school, the school has to take action.

So, how come everyone is ready to hang this child but no one thinks Facebook is bad? Facebook put personal stuff into public space. It's totally boundaryless and unhealthy.

Ah yes, evil Facebook is running amok again.
Facebook didn't do anything. It can't do anything. It's a social network. A website. It didn't write the rap, it didn't post the rap, it wasn't in charge of choosing the boy's privacy settings. I was going to say it's no different than if the boy had pinned the rap up on a public bulletin board, but of course that isn't true since you have the option to keep your Facebook page much more private than that. This has nothing to do with Facebook except that it happens to be where the kid chose to display his rap.

 

[FireDancer]

Unless they have other reason to think he will follow through on what he says I don't think writing a song, poem, book, or story about anything should get someone expelled. It is just a creative outlay and a much better way to get out aggregation then doing what they are merely writing about. If writing songs, plays, poems, or books about something violent was a sign you were going to actually follow through on those things there would be an awful lot of people in jail. Stephen King would have to be put to death in most states and a whole lot of pretty big name rappers would be serving life sentences. Someone could want to kill someone figuratively without wanting to kill them literally.

If the kid had made specific threats in the past and then also wrote a song about those threats that might be different but with only the limited information we have here is sounds like another example of not only the school butting into something done outside of their walls but also a zero tolerance policy run amok.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Unless they have other reason to think he will follow through on what he says I don't think writing a song, poem, book, or story about anything should get someone expelled. It is just a creative outlay and a much better way to get out aggregation then doing what they are merely writing about. If writing songs, plays, poems, or books about something violent was a sign you were going to actually follow through on those things there would be an awful lot of people in jail. Stephen King would have to be put to death in most states and a whole lot of pretty big name rappers would be serving life sentences. Someone could want to kill someone figuratively without wanting to kill them literally.

If the kid had made specific threats in the past and then also wrote a song about those threats that might be different but with only the limited information we have here is sounds like another example of not only the school butting into something done outside of their walls but also a zero tolerance policy run amok.

Steven King (to use your example) writes stories which include violence happening among fictional characters. If he wrote a story about people he sees nearly daily in which he was going out and killing or harming them and published that in some public format then I would think police would want to get involved in looking into that and King would no reason to be surprised if his publisher dropped him like a hot potato.
Can you truly not see the distinction between an author writing threats of him actually harming real life people he knows and has acess to and an artist writing about a fictional violent act involving fictional characteres

 

[Planogirl]

I agree that it's quite a bit different to threaten real people than to write fictional books with fictional characters under threat. You could say that some fan fiction might be similar to what the kid wrote though. Some of that can be pretty bad.

I think that it's wrong to say nasty things and threaten people in positions of authority. I'm all about respecting these people particulary when they have some control over your life.

 

[FireDancer]

Steven King (to use your example) writes stories which include violence happening among fictional characters. If he wrote a story about people he sees nearly daily in which he was going out and killing or harming them and published that in some public format then I would think police would want to get involved in looking into that and King would no reason to be surprised if his publisher dropped him like a hot potato.
Can you truly not see the distinction between an author writing threats of him actually harming real life people he knows and has acess to and an artist writing about a fictional violent act involving fictional characteres

I would imagine many of King's characters are based very much on people he knows in real life. Perhaps the kid in question should have changed the real names and use some artistic license but I would go out on a limb and say that there are many books written where the characters in them are based on people the authors know. In some of them bad things happen to those characters.

If Stephen King (or anyone else) decided to write a book in which he blows up his neighbors house and uses their real name perhaps the police would get involved. They would probably do their job and interview him and check to see if he purchased the materials necessary to blow up the house, see if he has ever made any specific threats to them, review their history to see if there is a motive for him to follow through, and so forth. If it was determined he was merely writing a book using real names he wouldn't be arrested. This student deserves the same.

Also, this was a rap song, right? I remember a lot of rap where specific people are mentioned as the target of violence. For example, Ice Cube's song No Vaseline is basically a death threat to Eric Wright (Eazy-E) where not only does he state he will kill him but specifically how. No one thought he would actually do it. There are a lot of songs in that particular medium that are very specific in their threats yet they are viewed as nothing more than an expression of art (perhaps not good art but it is all subjective).

Did this kid pose a real threat? Maybe. That is what police and/or school investigations are for. It sounds like in this particular case, at least from the limited information given, that there was no reason to believe that this was anything more then an artistic expression. Luckily in this country you can't be arrested (and shouldn't be expelled) for a crime you haven't actually committed. Even when crimes are foiled before they happen some proof you are actually planning them has to exist, more then writing a rap song about them. Heck, before a terrorist plot is deemed a legitimate threat it has to be substantiated.

If there was some corroborating evidence that this was a precursor to an actual crime of course he should be expelled and arrested. Perhaps suspending him while the investigation is going on would be a smarter move then expelling him for something they have no idea he was actually going to do. Until then I would caution on the side of freedom of expression and/or speech, especially since it happened outside of school on the Internet.

The kid is an idiot for writing in and not changing names but that doesn't mean he was going to actually do anything that was in that song.

This is of course only my opinion.

 

[NHdisneylover]

But the kids wasn't arrested--he was expelled. Similarly, King would be very likely to be dropped by his publisher if he DID write about blowing up his neighbors house using his and their names.
It happens all the time in the adult world too that while you are not criminally liable if you express hurtful opinions in a public way, you may well find yourself out of a job (which is the closest adult equivalent to school I guess). There was an NPR reporter fired this week for expressing his opinion publicly (on, I think, the Bill Reilly show) -and that was not even a threat like these are.

Not being one to listen to much rap I did not know there is a lot of music out there making specific violent (and death) threats against specific living people the rapper has access to on a regular basis. The songs we do have are pretty violent and use pretty terrible language but are not specific like that (that i have noticed). I actually do have an issue with that as well. I think their labels would be well with in their rights to drop them for this (which obviously they do not want to do if they are putting the music out there ).

I also think there is a distinction when the threats are made against people who essentially HAVE o spend time with the person making the threats (ie--the teachers cannot simply not teach the class this kid is in and the students do not get to not go he classes he is in or leave campus when he arrives). Since he targets of the threat have no choice but to remain at school then the he needs to be removed form the school so that these targets can go about their normal daily lives without putting themselves at risk. Of course, there is also the issue that many of the targets are minor children.

 

[FireDancer]

But the kids wasn't arrested--he was expelled. Similarly, King would be very likely to be dropped by his publisher if he DID write about blowing up his neighbors house using his and their names.
It happens all the time in the adult world too that while you are not criminally liable if you express hurtful opinions in a public way, you may well find yourself out of a job (which is the closest adult equivalent to school I guess). There was an NPR reporter fired this week for expressing his opinion publicly (on, I think, the Bill Reilly show) -and that was not even a threat like these are.

Not being one to listen to much rap I did not know there is a lot of music out there making specific violent (and death) threats against specific living people the rapper has access to on a regular basis. The songs we do have are pretty violent and use pretty terrible language but are not specific like that (that i have noticed). I actually do have an issue with that as well. I think their labels would be well with in their rights to drop them for this (which obviously they do not want to do if they are putting the music out there ).

Yeah, rap is pretty much like that, at least some of it is. It would be against the board rules to post the links but Google that No Vaseline song and that is just one I can think of off the top of my head.

I don't think school and business are the same. Someone can be fired for just about anything in a right to work state that isn't discriminatory. If I am late to work every day next week I can be fired. If a student is tardy every day next week most schools can't expel him. Heck, most schools can't even fail the kids they should because of all the red tape.

Also, was this a public school? If it is then I view the tax-dollar funded public schools as an extension of the government and I hold the government (and by extension the public schools) to a much higher standard when it comes to not punishing anyone for their speech then I do any private enterprise. If and only if it was a private school would I equate it to business. I am not sure in this case which it is.

It is what it is though. All kinds of stuff I don't agree with happens and, quite frankly, this doesn't actually effect me so I don't really care all that much. I just find it odd that they jumped to the conclusion they did without any investigation. We can agree to disagree on it being the right move.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Funny given that my impression has been that government employees are, in general, held to a higher standard than most others about what they can and cannot say in public.

Many teachers are advised not to have facecbook at all because of how easy it would be for someone to misinterpret anything posted and end up losing their jobs over it.

Do you honestly think that schools, post offices, IRS offices and a myriad of other entities would be in the wrong to fire an employee who publishes on an open forum a song which explicitly threatens co workers with violence and death? I don't.

Free speech rights give people the right to express an opinion (such as disliking someone, making fun of them or even wishing they were dead) but not the right to threaten people (in song, poetry or prose).

 

[FireDancer]

Funny given that my impression has been that government employees are, in general, held to a higher standard than most others about what they can and cannot say in public.

Many teachers are advised not to have facecbook at all because of how easy it would be for someone to misinterpret anything posted and end up losing their jobs over it.

Do you honestly think that schools, post offices, IRS offices and a myriad of other entities would be in the wrong to fire an employee who publishes on an open forum a song which explicitly threatens co workers with violence and death? I don't.

Free speech rights give people the right to express an opinion (such as disliking someone, making fun of them or even wishing they were dead) but not the right to threaten people (in song, poetry or prose).

A student isn't an employee, they are the customer. What the government does to it's employees and what they do to the citizens (or in this case the customer) I view as very different.

In the end I think that a threat should be investigated and if any threat is viable it should be dealt with further. This on it's face isn't proof of an intent to actually act on the song to me. Maybe it is too you and in this zero tolerance society we have unfortunately created I am not surprised he was expelled. If a kid draws a graphic novel depicting death and the people look just like their classmates and teacher I would think the same thing. I think way too often people jump the gun and don't really dig into the situation on a case by case basis, especially when the schools are involved.

 

[NHdisneylover]

A student isn't an employee, they are the customer. What the government does to it's employees and what they do to the citizens (or in this case the customer) I view as very different.

In the end I think that a threat should be investigated and if any threat is viable it should be dealt with further. This on it's face isn't proof of an intent to actually act on the song to me. Maybe it is too you and in this zero tolerance society we have unfortunately created I am not surprised he was expelled. If a kid draws a graphic novel depicting death and the people look just like their classmates and teacher I would think the same thing. I think way too often people jump the gun and don't really dig into the situation on a case by case basis, especially when the schools are involved.

Students are not really the same as employees or customers. Work is just the closest comparison we have. Nonetheless, if a postal worker, an IRS worker or a teacher wrote something where they were specifically writing threats of violence and death about specific frequent customers or students and published that in an open forum I would think they would be (and should be) out of a job as well. OR, if a customer of a post office or a library or whatnot wrote a letter to the editor saying not only do that hate employees X,Y and Z at those locals (which would be okay) but that they were going to ram their car into the front windows of said local when all those named employees are working and do their darnedest to run over and kill them all--then i would fully support said post office or library (or any other government funded agency) barring the customer from the premises.

FWIW, I do not like zero tolerance rules at all. I think they are ridiculous. If a kid (or adult) says in an offhanded way in the spur of the moment while annoyed "I am gonna kill you" (like in the PPs example) then I think it is a gross overstepping of bounds to treat that as any kind of a real threat. Or, if a very young child drew a picture of himself driving car over his teacher I would think the kid was just venting and could not be capable of doing that nor could the kid understand how wrong it is. Any teen in today's world knows threats of violence are taken seriously and is capable of carrying them out and this was not an off the cuff comment but rather a well thought out and written threat--which was then made widely available. Thus it moves out of free speech or even not thinking clearly and into threatening and intimidating behavior which truly warrants a strong reaction from the school.
In my opinion the rights of other students and staff to have a safe and on threatening learning environment trumps the right of this one teen to make premeditated threats of death and violence to those in the school in any form, including song.

 

[Magic Mom]

You found the song I see. Lovely huh He did go before the school board and apologize, but you can't put the genie back into the bottle.

I see both sides- schools reaching into our homes bothers me though.

They didn't reach into his home. He reached into the school when he made threats. They have an obligation to protect their faculty, staff and students.

 

[Mermaid02]

They didn't reach into his home. He reached into the school when he made threats. They have an obligation to protect their faculty, staff and students.

Folks are saying that he has never been in trouble before. The police are looking into the song- if they don't find any of the threats credible (for lack of a better word) should he be readmitted to school? Maybe after a psych eval?

 

[FireDancer]

Folks are saying that he has never been in trouble before. The police are looking into the song- if they don't find any of the threats credible (for lack of a better word) should he be readmitted to school? Maybe after a psych eval?

I think that is exactly the sensible thing to do.