Student suspended over buddy icon - court upholds it

Every once in awhile, a court ruling reaffirms my faith in the legal system. A 15 year old high school student was suspended for a semester for having an IM buddy icon on his computer that had a gun pointing at a head with blood coming out that said "Kill Mr. VanderMolden" on it, the name of his English teacher.

Other students informed the school of the icon, and the student was suspended for making a threat against a teacher. The police were involved, but declined to do anything, as they felt the icon was simply a harmless joke. The named teacher was extremely disturbed by the graphic, and asked to be removed from teaching the class out of fear for his own safety.

The student's parents of the student sued the school district on free speech grounds, but the judge sided with the district. The judge rejected the claim that it was protected free speech, noting "it cannot be viewed as anything but an unequivocal, unconditional, immediate threat of injury specific as to the person threatened, such as conveys a gravity of purpose and imminent prospect of execution."

http://news.com.com/Police+blotter+Student+sues+over+IM-related+suspension/2100-1028_3-6090123.html?tag=nefd.top

I think the judge is absolutely right in this case. It was perfectly reasonable for the teacher to feel that his life was being threatened - school shootings have become all too common, even if they have slowed in the past few years. The fact that parents even sued over is what gets to me - they have a child who made a clear death threat against a teacher. Of course they don't want to think their child could ever do that - and perhaps he didn't ever intend to. However, intent is irrelevant when it comes to threats.

I am also surprised that the police department did not do anything. When school shootings do happen, people always lament that there were no signs, that they had no idea - yet here you have a clear sign and it is treated as being harmless. Thankfully, the school district, and ultimately the court did not see it that way. I don't think a semester is long enough, however - I think he should be expelled from the school altogether.

I recall in school we used to play war at recess and now if kids do that the teachers think they are acting out a fantasy to kill them.

I was totally with you on this hilarious piece of satire... Until I realised you were being serious.

What exactly is funny about a teenager making a death threat?

You never had a late night out with your mates when you were a kid, and said someone should burn down the school... You never been a bit hard, been a bit of a rebel, looked cool in front of your mates and stuff...

This is just kids being kids, it's a world away from actually buying weapons and intending to kill anyone.

So some kid had an IM icon that said kill some teacher... That's just his way of being a rebel, being a bit cool. I think this has been blown way out of proportion. I think as a society we're in danger of losing our sense of humour and also of context.

Actually, no, I never have. Maybe the kid was just blowing off steam, but when you consider things like the Columbine shootings a few years back, I think it's best not to take that chance.

In view of the ongoing series of school shootings we hear about over here in the news, I think the teacher concerned was right to be concerned and the judge was right in his decision.

I don't think this would bother me if one of my students had an icon like that.

i think it might depend on the student involved too. was it the class joker, or the loner who likes to talk about his knife collection and how many guns dad owns?

exactly

Kids do stupid things. Most likely (and having not been there, can only guess) the kid had a rough time in class one day, went home and made this icon and then just never really thought about it much.

Given that it would feel like a personal message, many people would have reacted the way the teacher and the school officials did. Was it a bit of an over reaction? Maybe yes, but an easily predicted one.

Where the parents went wrong (just my opinion) was in siding with junior. There are times when you defend your children and times when you should not. Had this been my kid, I would have taken that moment to teach him the world doesn't revolve around him and guess what other people have feelings.

"Look junior, you might have thought this was funny but you hurt someone's feelings, you scared him, you made all this big hoopla. Now you get to fix it. It doesn't matter if you think the other person's feelings are valid or if you think they're over reacting. This is where you suck it up and put them first. You will go to the teacher, apologize, explain you never meant it, reassure him that you would NEVER do him any harm and say it as many times as he needs to hear it to feel comfortable with you again. Then you shut up and take your punishment like a man whether you agree with it or not."

The kid had a picture on his own, personal computer. He didn't threaten the teacher. He was making a statement. It's called freedom of speech. If the school wanted to have him meet with a counselor to discuss the matter, great. If there was any evidence that the kid had actually threatened the teacher, or had made any plans to harm anyone, then expel him. But for a computer icon? What's next? If I have a jpeg on my hard drive that shows my local mayor with a gun to his head will I be arrested? What about one of the governor or president?

Slip-sliding into totalitarianism.....

By nature of using the image in his IM program, he broadcast it to other students that he talked to, so it was no longer just on his computer. It wasn't simply a private image on his hard drive. Again, actual intent is not relevant when a threat is made, so whether he intended to kill him or not is immaterial to it being a threat. Other students viewed it as a threat and contacted the school. Given how often students are shooting their teachers and classmates these days, it is not surprising that they would not give much leeway here.

Freedom of speech yes, responsible speech no. Thats one of the issues more people need to understand. You are FREE to say anything you like. But you are also responsible for anything you say.

And if you passed that Jpeg off to a few friends, don't be surprised to find men in suits eyeing you through binoculars on your way to work the next day.

I'm with the teacher on this one. Freedom of speech doesn't include the right to broadcast death threats.

Suppose that image had named the president instead of the teacher. What are the odds he wouldn't've been visited by the FBI? A death threat is a death threat.

Pussy.

It was excuse #6, erm I mean video games' fault.

My entire generation made idle jokes about killing teachers, did we ever kill them? Most people who ARE crazy enough to kill their teachers won't show any obvious signs unless you're a good enough psychologist to notice things like severe enough depression that might lead to it.

The main problem is how far can you take something? I mean, yes, lives are potentially at risk, but how overbearing can you be on such an issue, should the kid have been thrown in jail for the teacher's safety? Should all kids be chained down until they are adults to protect teachers from the threat that children clearly pose to us? (my answer on that is yes but only if they're chained into a sound-proof box with no air because I dislike children in general).

Or even, with the teacher being so terrified that he asked not to teach that class, it begs the question; has the teacher been giving his class reasons to entertain fantasies of shooting him in the first place? There's every possibility that he's an awful teacher who picks on students, hands out unfair punishment, turns a deaf ear to workload concerns and so-on.

People make Flash cartoons about shooting George W. Bush, yet I suspect none of them have been carted away by the FBI as they still keep churning them out.

School computer is one thing, home computer is another. I think this is free speech and could be overturned if the family has the monies to appeal it.

So the kid hates his teacher. Mr VanderMolden is probablly a fucking asshole. The kid has poor judgment but he's a kid that's why we don't let him drink or vote.

It looks pretty innocent to me if the article is taken at face value.

No - it's called threatening behaviour. In a society in which teachers were never murdered by pupils, your comment would be true. But the teacher clearly regarded this as a threat and reacted accordingly.

I don't blame him at all.

In both America and Britain, violence in the classroom has reached alarming levels. Until that situation is resolved, any pupil stupid enough to threaten his or her teacher gets what is coming to them.

We need more information for an educated opinion on this thing. Was the kid a weirdo, loner, violent towards animals, etc.? Apparently he at least wasn't a trouble maker, but that's all it says there. From the article it sounds like the kid was basically normal.

The court said, "he had no reasonable expectation that it would not come to the attention of school officials"... hmm, I'm not sure about that. In the mind of a teenager who just is trying to be funny (in poor taste), I really doubt that he expected school officials to find out. If he did, he probably wouldn't have had the icon on his IM account, right?

I love how the free speech garbage argument came up here though, what a JOKE. It's not "free speech", it's not even remotely close to that topic...what the hell was this "free speech" supposed to be expressing? lol. Give me a break and stop wasting our court system's time. Those jokers waste enough money as it is. It's more like "free stupidity"... sure, it's not written down (yet), but it's an implied right!

But I don't think it's a death threat either, it was never sent directly to the teacher, that'd be a different story. Better safe than sorry, sure, but suspension isn't going to do anything anyway. There HAS to be a way to take reasonable precautions while at the same time not wrecking the lives of kids that simply have a poor sense of humor (which was probably a result of modern entertainment...not to provide excuses or anything.)

It's because the Secret Service does that! (j/k)

Please do not post such complicated concepts here. Such concepts are eeeeevil and must be completely ignored, or else someone might have to take responsibility for something. We can't have that now.

(That said, I still think this case is an over-exaggeration of probably nothing... kids don't know this concept and I guess they're rarely taught it. I was lucky, I got that lesson in high school--apparently this is too late though, now.)

With the limited data available from the linked article (none of which seems to say anything about whether the kid tended to act in any way that might make the implied threat seem like a serious issue, and not just an idiot acting like an idiot), I think the school overreacted and the kid was a fucking idiot for not only making/using the icon but making a lawsuit out of his protest of the decision.

That kid is an asshole, and deserves to be expeled from school. AND, the teacher should sue the little bastard and his parents.

Jesus - everyone involved in this story needs to get laid, yiffed, doinked... however the hell you want to say it. The collective ass-clenching of America will be our eventual downfall.