CMJR 494
May 18, 2009
Professor Bammert
Two words that have always seemed to compliment one another when used together are school and bullying. During recent years, the stereotypical image of a bully has changed greatly. Bullies today are no longer the giants they once were and they no longer use their brut force to hurt other children. Due to the invention of the Internet and other new forms of technology bullies now are using keyboards to flood chat rooms, personal web pages, cell phone messages and instant messaging services and strategically bully people they dislike.
In many instances bullying is worse now than it has ever been simply because there is no escaping the reach of the Internet. Children can no longer just come home after a hard day of bullying from one person. They have to live a life where everyone in their school has labeled them with whatever stigma that the bully has created, whether it be real or made up. Additionally, these students that are victims of cyber bullying cannot escape their bullies. Thanks to websites such as myspace and facebook, the bullying can continue even though the bully is not physically present. This has caused a new problem that has resulted in several young teens committing suicide due to the aggressive and intrusive nature of cyber bullying.
This paper will discuss some of the challenges and cases that have resulted due to increased levels of cyber bullying. It will also discuss whether schools should have the ability to censor students that participate in the act of cyber bullying, whether those students should be protected by the first amendment and what the consequences should be for bullies causing so much emotional distress it causes physical harm. I believe that any form of bullying or harassment that can be determined to have malicious intent must have punishable consequences and those consequences need to be in line with the severity of how those acts of cyber bullying affect the victim. I also believe that if any form of digital communication results in any physical act perpetrated against the student being bullied then it should be open for censorship.
While cyber bullying can be considered a form of hate speech I do think that each individual has a right to express their opinion about other individuals. However, when cyber bulling reaches a level where it begins to cause physical harm, the line has to be drawn. The only way that hate speech and cyber bullying can be justified is due to the individual reason for freedom of speech. Philosophical and political reasons for freedom of speech don’t apply here with cyber bullying. It is one individual’s idea of self-fulfillment against another’s but how does that apply when one individual’s idea of personal fulfillment degrades another individual’s identity to the point where that individual commits suicide?
The interpretation states, “The third reason for freedom of speech is based on a belief in the dignity of the individual and the right of each person to self-fulfillment” (Tedford 434). The statement firmly identifies a belief in the dignity of the individual but my question here is how does that apply? I would argue that our founding fathers did not entertain this idea of cyber bullying nor did they entertain the idea of how the Internet would change the entire world, yet alone US first amendment law. I would also argue that our founding fathers did not want other people to violate or intrude on another person’s sense of identity to the point where that person committed suicide. With that being said, I think it is important for individuals to fight back when it comes to cyber bulling and I think that when cyber bullying reaches a level where it threatens the individual dignity of another individual’s freedom of living their life (i.e. being able to attend school without fear of being severely made fun of) then it is a violation of the first amendment and calls for censorship.
Another way to look at cyber bullying is through the lens of philosophical reasoning relating to first amendment rights. I know I previously mentioned earlier that cyber bullying did not fall into that category and I would like to discuss why more in detail. Philosophical reasoning relies on the “ancient struggle for intellectual freedom and the search for truth” (Tedford 432). The idea is that if you let certain ideas compete, in the long run the truth will prevail. The reason this doesn’t work with cyber bullying is because the truth does not always prevail. One specific case illustrates this point quite well and it is unfortunate that it involves the death of a thirteen year old boy who took his own life. After numerous threats and teases 13 year old Ryan took his own life. His father said, “Other kids didn’t realize that he was truly suicidal” (Dakss 1). Then after Ryan’s death, his father went onto his computer and pulled up all the conversations that had helped influence his sons suicide. He father said “it was the most painful reading that I ever had to do in my entire life. My heart just broke a thousand times over every conversation that I read” (Dakss 2). Ryan’s example is a perfect case in which the truth relating to freedom of speech in the form of cyber bulling did not prevail and it cost Ryan his life. This is only one example of many cases where young teenagers have committed suicide because 1) either false things were said, believed and then the teenager was stigmatized with false truths or 2) the teenagers expressed their freedom of speech in the form of communicating their discontent and it wasn’t honored. This is why a philosophical reason for freedom of speech will never be a solid argument for cyber bullying being protected by the first amendment.
Another aspect that cyber bullying should be subjected to is called a “bad tendency test”. The idea behind a bad tendency test is that you stop a problem before it can actually happen. That means that speech the courts consider dangerous or offensive can be punished if it “be adjudged of a pernicious tendency” (Tedford 24). The bad tendency rule “allowed the government to constrain a message soon after it was published on the assumption that, if allowed to continue, it might create a problem sometime in the future” (Tedford 24). Additionally, no proof would be required that the message in question was a genuine threat to society or to the government (Tedford 24).
I believe this is the best test to use when considering the affects of cyber bullying. It is one thing to say something to another individual but it is something else entirely to post, distribute and manufacture it in a digital format. When this kind of technology is used, messages can be distributed on a massive scale that can produce a community organized (in this case school) backlash against a person. For young teens struggling with identity issues and for any other young teenager, developing a sense of identity is particularly difficult during this point in their life. The last thing that they need to worry about is the stress of being stigmatized because someone decides to massively distribute messages that are vulgar in nature. With a bad tendency test, it would provide the governing institution (in this case the school) the authority to determine if those messages constituted a threat and censor accordingly.
It would also provide schools with the opportunity to establish a code of conduct and applicable punishment for students who continue to violate the new implemented rules. We all know that when you are on a school campus your rights are waved. School officials can search your lockers, backpacks and cars with little or no warning and they can do it with drug sniffing dogs or police officials if they deem it necessary. Is it really so much more intrusive if school officials monitor how students use technology to deface other students? The difficult part is how to determine where to draw the line. According to Hannah Storm’s (a cyber bully victims) mother will tell you, “You can’t prove who did it, you can’t find out who did it, and it probably would exacerbate the problem to make something of it” (Dakss 2). My question is: what about people like Ryan Halligan? Simply ignoring the problem led to his suicide so clearly DOING SOMETHING about it COULD prove more helpful then simply doing nothing. I think that the solution is two fold to this problem of cyber bulling.
First, there needs to be education to parents about how the Internet can help and hurt their children. It is the duty of schools and parents to use the communication they have to combat the problem. Additionally, is the job of the parent to know what is going on in their child’s life and take action to notify a school official. The action taken by the school official should be swift based on real physical interaction or communication they see after begin tipped off by the parent about their child possibly being bullied while at home. Then necessary actions can be taken against the students who are cyber bullying. Typically, cyber bullies are often known but not exposed because they strategically involve other people so they can remain visible yet invisible (Cyberbullying by Proxy).
An example of a court case relating to class material was the case of Schenck v. United States in 1919. Defendant Charles T. Schenck was charged with 3 counts of violating the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917 (Tedford 48). The first violation occurred when he distributed a leaflet, which urged resistance to a drift. He was also charged with conspiracy to circulate the document through the mail and actually mailing of the copies (Tedford 48). This is similar to cyber bulling in several key ways. The first is the way in which Charles T. Schenck was trying to convince others to fight or deface a cause (in this case it was the draft). This is similar to cyber bullying because another individual is trying to spread information to other students in order to cause personal defacement to another student or person that the bully dislikes. The second way this relates to cyber bulling is in how the distribution of anti draft leaflets took place. The mail system was used to massively distribute the documents/ information. This is similar with cyber bullying because the media or system used to distribute the information is the World Wide Web via the Internet. The reason for this ruling was based on the bad tendency test and the ability of the documents to possiblly cause harm to the US government. That is why the government reacted and upheld the conviction. This could also prove to be an example of why the bad tendency test could be used in the case of cyber bullying and convictions could be upheld.
The main argument in the Schenck v. United States cause was that the leaflet, “would not have been sent unless it had been intended to have some effect, and we do not see what effect it could be expected to have upon persons subject to the draft expect to influence them to obstruct the carrying of it out” (Tedford 48). In the case of cyber bullying there are additionally similarities. Just as the Supreme Court ruled that the intent was important and hindered the ability of the US government to have a successful draft cyber bullying is also hindering a critical element for people who are victims of cyber bullies. That critical element is a fair and necessary education in the school system. If cyber bullying significantly decreases the child’s ability to interact with other people as they begin to develop their education in school then it can be seen as malicious in intent. In fact, several students that have suffered from cyber bullies have turned to home schooling in order to get away from other students that have turned to bullying on a massive scale (Dakss 2).
If the US government can rule to prevent the distribution of anti draft leaflets via a mail system because the intent had to be interference with a successful draft then an education system should have the same ability to rule in favor of a child having a chance at a legitimate education. The question to resolve for future cases is: what should the punishment be and how can the right people be identified and charged with violations of interfering with the education of other teenage students through cyber bulling? That is a question that the debate should focus on for later use because determining if an education system should have the ability to censor other bullies who risk the educational opportunities of other students and their participation in gaining that education is without question an appropriate justification to punish cyber bullies.
Evan McLaughlin Paper #1
April 18, 2009
CMJR 494
Dr. Bammert
In answering the question: “What Principle(s) should guide our understanding of communication justice and freedom of expression” I feel the best philosophical approach to the three cases I have chosen would be based on the philosophy of individual communication justice. The three cases I have chosen to explore more in depth include the articles titled: 1) Federal judge: Man’s anti-war T-shirts express ‘core political speech’ (from the Libel. Commercial speech category) 2) Jackson student leaders want shirts back after slogans called offensive (from the student speech category) and 3) Second Thoughts About kids and Cell Phones (from the Religious Moral Heresy: Obscenity category).
The philosophy of individual communication justice centers “on the belief in the dignity of the individual and the right of each person to self-fulfillment” (Tedford 434). This belief respects the freedoms of people to decide what to read, hear view and say (Tedford 434). The individual communication justice can also be related to freedom of expression through the fine arts as well. Anything relating to “composing poetry, painting a picture, or participating in theatre, dance and film” can all relate to the individual philosophy of communication justice (Tedford, 434). It is also important to note that often the three basic philosophies of communication justice are not mutually exclusive and overlap (434). While I will be making the case that the individual philosophy of communication justice applies to the first case of the man printing T-shirts with the names of soldiers that have died in Iraq, it also adheres to this idea of different philosophies of communication justice overlapping.
The reason why the individual philosophy of communication should guide the first case of the man printing t-shirts with the names of soldiers that have died in Iraq on them is valid relates to the stated value of being artistic in nature. The T-shirts were the opinion of the man taken as an idea and expressed in an artistic way via printing his idea on a T-shirt as a form of individual free speech. Due to the fact that the T-shirts were not only a statement but a form of art and the ultimate end product of one man’s ideas, the individual communication justice philosophy directly applies to the case. Thus, using the individual philosophy of communication justice not only makes sense but also solidifies the representation of free speech through the human spirit in the form of a specific art that can be consumed as a product.
The families of the soldiers make a good case in that the man did not ask them for their permission to publish the shirts but as Zechariah Chafee Jr. states, “In war time, therefore, speech should be unrestricted by the censorship or by punishment, unless it is clearly liable to cause direct and dangerous interference with the conduct of the war” (Tedford 435). Any single person can to go the published websites of new organizations and get an ongoing list of names for the soldiers that have died in Iraq. According to the individual philosophy of communication justice it allows what people can read, hear and view (434). In this statement by itself, the man has every right to have his freedom of speech protected through the individual philosophy of free speech. Additionally, the man is also protected by a combination of integrating the political philosophy of his statement against the government. By itself, the individual communication justice philosophy works but in combination with the political philosophy, the parents of soldiers that have died in Iraq are fighting two forms of individual and political philosophies that protect individual freedom of speech.
In the second article titled, “Jackson student leaders want shirts back after slogans called offensive” the individual philosophy of communication justice also applies. The reason it is the best form of communication justice philosophy to use involves similar association with being a form of art. The shirts made for the different classes of Jackson high school students were ideas that were taken and a specific product was created as a form of freedom of expression that could be displayed on the canvas of a purple t-shirt. Additionally, the words displayed on the back of the shirts were chosen by each class in a kind of process related directly to a democratic process of voting. While the words on the shirt could be interpreted as offensive it is still freedom of personal expression through a form of artistic design. Part of that artistic design could have also been the hidden meaning in the words printed on the back of those shirts. The fact that most of the administrators and parents did not know the meaning of the words shows that the shirts were artistic in nature. The shirts in no way violated any form of public safety and encouraged the search for truth in the meaning of the phrases on the back of the shirts. In essence, the shirts facilitated public discussion and encouraged fruitful debate about what certain words mean when used in a given context.
A case against the shirt can be made in that some people found the words offensive. However, if the ruling majority of that particular student body voted to use the specific words chosen that directly supports the concept of democracy and freedom of speech. The very fact that parents of students who disliked the church had the ability to voice their opinions shows the power of individual philosophical communication justice to continually facilitate discussion and debate. When Jackson high school administrators ordered the shirts to be returned that terminated the form of public and individual discussion, which led to a decrease in individual freedom of expression. While individual people do have the right to voice their opinions the idea that a minority can control a majority (as shown that the majority of students in each class voted for the words to be displayed on the back of the shirts in a democratic process) shows a lack of freedom in terms of the individual expressions of the students who chose the shirts in the first place.
It is for these reasons why the individual process for communication justice is appropriate and best to use in preserving the individual freedom of speech for the Jackson High School students. If the final decision to keep or recall the shirts were based fully on the individual philosophy of communication justice the outcome would be that the students would be able to have and wear their individual shirts as a way of showing their individual freedom of expression. If students chose not the wear the shirts then it would also be a statement that supported the same personal freedom of expression.
The last case titled, “Second Thoughts About Kids and Cell Phones” also ties into the idea of an individual communication justice philosophy. As stated previously, the individual philosophy gives each person the freedom to decide what to read, hear, view and say (Tedford 434). I can understand the argument that the girl who had her picture taken experienced a violation of personal privacy in that her nude pictures ended up being sent all around the high school she attended. However, as the individual philosophy will state, persons have the freedom to choose what they read, hear, view and say. If other students chose to view her nude photographs via their cellular phones then they are in no way violating that philosophical understanding. The individual philosophy of communication justice is also what allowed the student to express herself in terms of nude photographs in the first place. It also allowed her to speak out about it after the event occurred.
If this philosophical understanding of communication justice was fully realized the outcome would result in several different events. For one, the girl who exposed herself has the right or freedom of personal expression. Art can also be in the form of photographs, whether they are nude or not. Instead of her being charged with “sexual abuse of children and dissemination of child pornography when she posted nude pictures of herself online” freedom of individual expression under the 1st amendment would protect her from those allegations. It would do this by establishing that other students are the cause for the reason why her nude photos were distributed around campus. That is also a protection of 1st amendment rights through the individual philosophical form of communication justice. The second result is that the person responsible for initially beginning the distribution of those photographs would be charged with the personal defacement of property. This is a much different outcome then what actually occurred. In the end, the event facilitated a discussion on the topic that proved to be fruitful for a society understanding of how to handle further situations involving these issues.
Bibliography
"Federal Judge: Man's anti-war T-shirts express 'core political speech'" Associated Press 21 Aug. 2008. Congresscheck.com. 20 Apr. 2009
Gibbs, Nancy. "Second Thoughts About Kids and Cell Phones." Time Magazine 5 Mar. 2009. 20 Apr. 2009
Tedford, Thomas L. Freedom of speech in the United States. 5th ed. State College, Pa: Strata Pub., Inc., 2005.
Thompson, Lynn. "Jackson student leaders want shirts back after slogans called
offensive. "Seattle Times 27 Mar. 2009. 20 Apr. 2009
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