Racist Teens Forced to Answer for Tweets About the 'N***er' President

http://jezebel.com/5958993/racist-teens-forced-to-answer-for-tweets-about-the-nigger-president

by rkudeshi • 14 years ago

7 2 14 years ago

peeplaja• 14 years ago

Twitter should really do something about its security. All these accounts getting hacked all the time...

csense• 14 years ago

While most of us find these tweets distasteful, I personally find the notion that the school should be able to punish them troubling.

Presumably they're saying these things at home, on their own time, not during school hours or at school-sanctioned events -- so the school has no grounds to punish them.

(I'm assuming they go to public school. Private schools probably have a much wider leeway to require students to place restrictions on their conduct as a condition of continued enrollment.)

While the comments are distasteful, nothing illegal is being said here. The speech in question is criticism of a political figure, which is a specifically protected category of speech.

(The article briefly brushes on the fact that death threats -- especially against the President -- can result in criminal charges. Death threats cross a line that racial epithets do not.)

OTOH, I'm not arguing that their behavior shouldn't or doesn't have consequences. The Internet community can apply public pressure, and if the school is made aware that they're making these tweets, school officials should be able to inform their parents. If the accounts are connected to their real names, they may regret it years later, when significant others, colleges or employers Google them and don't like what they find.

Racist Teens Forced to Answer for Tweets About the 'N***er' President

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