I got in trouble off campus and the principal found out about it. (I was having trouble with my parent's divorce.) I was called into his office, where he asked me if things were going OK for me. He never mentioned any details or events, he was just being concerned with my well-being. He was always helpful to me and I made good decisions based on his comments to me. THAT is what a principal should be.
When I worked at a school, we were told in training that the 1st amendment does not apply to staff or students. I left very quickly after I was told to embrace religion in a public school or be fired. You don’t have full rights under the law if you are in any institution, be it schools or prisons, even if you’re not in the building.
So the student makes fun of the Principal on social media for being too serious and thin skinned and the Principal then immediately proves them right? Can't make this shit up. 😆
You might not be able to, but I could definitely make this up. It’s really not that unique or interesting a premise. I’d be genuinely surprised if there wasn’t a sitcom episode identical to these circumstances.
That person has no right being a Principal. The Last part of Principal is PAL and that person is a Pal to No One especially the students. His contract needs to be torn up along with every member of the School Boards to allow this to happen. I'd bet the Principal was bullied in school so he is returning the favor to his students.
@@gretafortenberry5285 could not disagree more. Being a "pal" has nothing to do with being a principal. He is the Principal (ie, primary) Administrator/Supervisor/Director. His job is to ensure the school runs smoothly. That's it. Of course, not being a vindictive little a-hole is a big part of that because no organization can run smoothly if the boss is an a-hole. Therefore, a student posting memes that had absolutely zero impact on the smooth running of the school should not have been a concern whatsoever.
Principal Jason Quick has resigned from Tullahoma HS effective June 30, 2023. He has been there three years. He had planned to stay until he reached retirement; however, he told a newspaper reporter that, "he had planned to stay and retire as principal in Tullahoma but things changed." As my grandmother would have said, "Do tell!" I have been a High School principal, and feel qualified to observe that his sudden announced departure was not likely to have been entirely his own idea.
I haven't seen anyone unironically using _standardized testing_ as a legitimate way to measure how much students are learning in ages. I highly recommend doing a little research into it.
Yours has that high a rate. By me they got the rate to 90%, by simply dropping the pass mark to 20%, and also by riding the curve so that 90% will pass, and then simplifying the syllabus as well, dropping all those hard subjects like math and science. Then wonder why universities have a first year that is essentially remedial school they added on, to weed out 80% of the initial intake, to solve the issue that the government said all who passed could go to university, and they would have the free edukashun. Oh yes, and teachers with multiple cases of having children with the students under them, as young as 12, still teaching.
the fact that this 'adult' principal's feelings could be hurt by a child, tells you everything you need to know about the principal. this 'adult' shouldn't be in control of a school, because they can't even 'control' their emotions.
As soon as you get everyone in this country to agree on exactly what that looks like then you will have victory. Until then you’re going to have to keep dealing with this. Every person at a school thinks it’s their right and duty to make your child into what they see as a good little employee. That will go work for some other person and make them money. That’s why most of the training involves sitting in a desk for long periods of time they are trying to break you of the idea that you get to walk up wherever you want. that’s why this is never going to go away because they’re trying to train them for a corporate employee or minimum wage employee lifestyle. And all of that involves all of the stringent standards of behavior
The now-famously-thin-skinned former Tullahoma High School Principal = Jason Quick. Assistant Principal Derrick Crutchfield is also named as a defendant.
The reason this has clearly happened more than once is the reality of personalities in official school positions, many with ego and control issues. This isn't just common to schools but also other government roles of assumed power like police officers and judges as well. Bottom line is none of these people have special rights over others.
And the officials you mentioned already have an incredible amount of power and 'discretion' within their spheres; but for the power-hungry, there's just never enough power that they won't try for more.
I had to fix an elevator inside of a public middle school a few months ago. I was taken aback by the way some teachers barked at students before first bell or during the passing periods.
I used to be a teacher. He will if he sticks it out, but schools intentionally prolong trials like this for as many years as possible to bleed the other side dry of funds. Public schools regularly do illegal things like this knowing most won’t sue then punish the people holding them accountable as much as possible. Since the money comes from the government and not the people doing it they don’t care. And when the schools refuse to pay after losing judges rarely hold anyone in contempt so the families have to sue again. They will also most likely retaliate against the kid and his relatives by doing things like allowing bullying (including violence) and overly harsh grading, excluding him from classes needed for college, and other issues. Small chance he’ll get any kind of help with higher education like letters of recommendation or provide documentations necessary for scholarship assistance. Not just for this kid mind you but all his relatives and possibly his friends too. The school might not, but I’ve seen all those things and worse from many different public schools over the years. Including flat out refusing to provide transcripts or proof of graduation to colleges of kids on black lists until after the enrollment acceptance deadlines. That was a common threat from my school and bragged about the students they did it to naming names so we could check.
@@ThatOpalGuy There are tons of laws and regulations that are indeed broken in these actions, making them illegal. I know, I spent two weeks talking to education lawyers about how my son was treated. They said we had a slam dunk case but it would take years and we might not get any money, so I should be prepared to put up at least 10k to start. What they do is indeed illegal, but they are protected by the power of the state.
@@AngryPug76 Principal at my school was scared of my Mom coming up there she didn't put up with any kind of bs and had friends on the school board in fact her and I were friends with the Super Intendant (Was a former Teacher that liked me yes I was a teachers pet in that class she was a cool teacher) so the Principal knew if they pissed Mom off she could make things bad for them
@liwojenkins My mom stopped alot of this bs from happening to me because she had friends on the school board and her and I were both well liked by the Super Intendant. Principal learned very quickly not to piss my Mom off 😂
When I was in second grade I got bullied there was a group of 4 boys who always waited for me to walk off school property and when I was about 100 yards away they would surround me and beat the crap out of me. About 3 months before summer came I got tired of it and one of the boys showed up alone 15 minutes after school let out and I was almost a quarter mile away from the school. He punched me in the nuts so I blacked his eye. I got suspended for a fight that took place off of school property in self-defense. The entire year the school did nothing about the bullies but the second I stood up for myself I got suspended. That's the problem with schools they pretend they have authority outside of school activities.
@@The1stDukeDroklarI like the idea of momentarily monetarily held accountable. That would be instantly losing their job and paying the student's family for violating the rights of the child. That would end this nonsense very quickly.
You can, actually. It's called filing a claim against the government employee's Surety Bond. Cops, teachers, ect. They all have to have one. You can file a claim against it like Auto-Insurance for rights violations or injuries. And if the bond company pays out, the bond holder has to pay back the bond company every single CENT of money from their own coffers or else lose their ability to work for the state aka they get fired and can't be rehired.
As a person in charge of anything you must not have thin skin. As a retired senior NCO I've been called some really great stuff, I always tried to have fun with it. In the military they sometimes do it cause they actually like you. Your A DH, but you're ours!
It sounds like Government Overreach. All of the school staff who took part in this suspension should be fired for their stupidity and the students record of missed time and assignments should be corrected.
They don’t need fired they need publicly humiliated. People like that do not like to be publicly humiliated since it is clear that they already displayed thin skin.
I remember when i was in Jr high and High School, (it was the same building), that our principal was a model figure of decorum and respect. When I moved schools between my 10th and 11th grade years, the principal of the new school was firm but fair, and was *admired* and respected by virtually everyone there, students and teachers alike. Both students *and* teachers were held to the highest standards of decorum and respect. These people also understood that a little lampooning was a necessary safety valve to release tension. So much so that I actually witnessed a student assembly where a group of seniors lampooned just about everyone on the school's staff - and everyone thought it was hysterically funny, even the staff members themselves. We have fallen far from that ideal.
Our principal had taken it a step further and would join in on any lampooning of himself. Ironically (or perhaps not), he earned more respect from doing so. Hypothetically, I would imagine that if someone drew him with cat ears, he'd probably get a costume headband and wear it for a day, at least until he got bored of it or had to meet with someone; he probably wouldn't wear a dress too, though.
@@johnpublic6582 He never seemed to fear being perceived as childish. As such, he usually let stuff roll off like water off a duck's back and often saw that there were bigger fish to fry. That said, he wasn't perfect, he certainly made mistakes, bad decisions, or more often, let smaller stuff slide until they got larger, but that was preferable to the alternative.
The supreme court even ruled that rescinding a college recommendation for off-campus speech was a 1st amendment violation. Have to wonder if the administration here didn't know they were breaking the law or just were hoping that the student wouldn't know.
@clbcl5 I doubt that the school was monitoring anything. The video mentioned several times the cheerleader case. In that case the girl sent her f bomb opinion to a couple of friends who then sent it to a couple of friends who then sent it to a coach and in the present day idiom, it went viral. You can bet with near certainty that something similar happened in this case.
Some of these school officials are so full of themselves they can't take a joke. Back in high school we had an extremely pompous library director (with some overly inflated & undeserved title). This was before social media by a few years. I took a picture of him off the school's website and manipulated the hell out of it in Photoshop. I left copies of it in random spots around campus. He was universally hated by the students, and most of the staff. It was a big hit. That man was out for BLOOD trying to figure out who did it. I could 100% see a person with a similar temperament doing this over memes.
I hope that now, as an adult, you see how horrible you were as a child. Just imagine if someone at your current workplace did that to you and all of your colleagues just sniggered at you. It's not too late to write a letter of apology to that library director.
@@commontater1785 As an adult I see that he was an even worse person than we thought he was at the time. A pompous ass using his little bit of authority to make the lives of students as difficult as possible. He spent his day sneaking up behind students making snarky comments trying to make you feel like you were doing something wrong. We spent our time in the library trying to avoid him at all costs. He deserved WORSE.
@@jblyon2 What I've found as I get older, is that maybe when I was young, I wasn't very good at judging people's intentions. Did he 'sneak up' on you, or did you just get surprised because you didn't know he was there? How is he 'sneaking' if he is making his presence known by speaking to you? Were his comments 'snarky' or was he doing his job and calling out bad behavior? Were you never actually doing something wrong, or did you just hide behind the excuse that he shouldn't have been able to catch on? That's a typical teenage thought, "Sure I was drinking in the locker room, but there's no way he could have known, so he's a jerk for accusing me.' Isn't it his job to 'spend his day' keeping order amongst hundreds of teenagers whose parents aren't there to control them? Was he full of himself, of did he just assert his dominance and justified right to tell you what to do. No teenager likes being told what to do, even when they are wrong. I don't know. I wasn't there. But if I were you, I would ask myself, do I often see 'pompous asses' around me? Do I regularly resent people in authority for enforcing rules?
@@commontater1785 He was on a power trip, sneaking up on students without making a sound, and would just stand there and start commenting when you finally noticed there was someone creepily staring over your shoulder. I'll just say this. The man was forced into a quiet early retirement several years later after a slew of student and parent complaints about his behavior.
ok. I'm still not convinced that you can blame people for not making noise when they walk. I mean, it's not like we are all trucks backing up and we're supposed to make a beeping noise. But as for the rest of it, you were there and I wasn't.@@jblyon2
In high school in the 1980s I was drawing unflattering caricatures of my teachers in the school library. The librarian saw them and asked if I could do all of the teachers. Everyday I drew 2 or 3 of them and gave them to her. The beginning of the second semester I was walking by the library display case and all my drawings were on display.
My dad owned the building on your shirt for a few years in the 90's. He lived there while restoring and preserving the recording studio. It was like the music and cultural history of the place was being forgotten. It was being used as washer and dryer repair shop by the previous owner. I spent weekends and summers there while he saved that building from becoming another rundown commercial property. He treated it like a museum and so have the subsequent owners. Long story boring, cool shirt brother!
@@newshodgepodge6329 Kind of you to say. Seeing that shirt has made me very nostalgic. I've got kids as old as I was then... I think I'll take them to visit my dad tomorrow. He will get a kick out of knowing a Michigan based lawyer youtuber is representing muscle shoals sound. I wonder what he'll think about steve's subscribers outnumbering the broadcast coverage of any radio or television station in the shoals area ten fold.
@@jonathoncopeland660 I'm glad you saw this . I figured I was the only person in colbert county who watched Steve lol. I think I have seen him wearing the shirt once before about a month or two ago. I'm glad your dad saved the building. I always heard Mick wrote "wild horses " in the bathroom there and the lyrics were written on the door. Any way you could confirm that? Probably just something I heard at Max's guitar shop down the road..
@@jonathanjohnson8656 100% factual those lyrics on the bathroom door. along with countless dirty poems and signatures. The largest and most prominent thing on the bathroom door was "Bob Seger" and it was about eye level. I heard about that door being replaced, along with the wood panel walls that tiny bathroom was covered with autographs and unreleased lyrics. I really hope they didn't wind up in a landfill, but no one I've asked knows where they went.
@@chuck-ep2yron your personal computer you have that choice. Computers supplied by schools in 2020 were for zoom classes so the cameras couldn't be covered. I'm sure parents didn't expect the schools to invade their privacy during non-school hours so didn't instruct children to close the computer when not using it for school.
I remember that story. The school suspended some girls because they saw through the chromebook that they were smoking pot in their rooms. The parents sued for invasion of privacy but the school got off scott free.
When I was still in school, a teacher would tell us that freedom of speech only applied to adults because of accountability. My remark of, "So you can only have free speech if you can be sent to jail for it"? Was blatantly ignored.
School administration has no business being on social media, outside the context of managing their own school's page and the posts being made directly on said page. Even if they hear about a student potentially inciting a disruption, it should be referred to the appropriate local authorities to investigate, which is definitely not the damn principle or their subordinates.
I remember when this happened, and the principle only accomplished having a couple million people talking about how ignorant he is. He only proved that he shouldn't be a principal and how goofy the guy is.
My Principal in Highschool was a grand old Gentleman from the Twenties, This was in Virginia in the early 1970s. He never would have been lampooned as he was loved by the student body. My Melvin B Landis Rest in Peace
Educators have an opportunity here to actually teach these students what constitutes free speech, and what is an appropriate action of response to it that sets you up to be in a position to be able to handle being “triggered”, in the words of todays youths
Exactly. So the principal and teachers can go home and post funny "memes" of students and their parents. Make fun of them for being poor, mentally disabled, whatever they want. It is being done in personal time so it is 1st amendment protected. That would be the most effective lesson in free speech.
What happens out of school, off school property and not on school time is absolutely none of the schools business unless it poses a potential serious threat and danger to the school and students! And that is on school property on school time. But her educational system has gotten to a point where they want to dictate control and facilitate the actual thoughts opinions and daily lives of students at all hours! This is the definition of overage.
Something like this happened when I was in high school. My freshman year was the first year my school had a technology class that was focused on PC repair. One of the older students in the class had a website that he had built and maintained from home on his own time. He had written some stuff on his site about the high school principal including nicknaming him "Sterile Darryl", somehow the principal found out about it and barged into the class to threaten the student that if he didn't take the offensive content down he would suspend him, the student flat out refused and then the principal threatened to call the cops on him and have him arrested. That principal retired within a year of that incident.
Absolutely. If it wasn’t at the school and during school hours, it’s the student’s personal time. His private life. A principal cannot dictate a student’s private life.
Obviously, the principal at this school, has only heard the first part of The Civil Rights Lawyer (Esq.) closing words about "Freedom Is Scary", and missed the most important part about "dealing with it". But, as we all should know, the Constitution's guarantees of INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM also scares the feces out of law enforcement.
Society as a whole is not constrained by the First Amendment. However the principal, taking action as a government employee, is. If anyone is showing contempt, it is those who choose to ignore this distinction.
My highschool (totally going to name and shame them, Gulf Breeze High circa 2009) attempted to suspend me because in a video of mine, which I filmed in my room, involved me opening a box I got in the mail with a simple pocket knife. I made zero reference to my school, the package was a videogame, the video was about the videogame. I was 18 at the time, additionally. I merely threatened to sue, and they left me be. Schools, moreso public schools, are totally insane.
Government jobs, such as teaching public school, attract people with tendencies towards communism, bureaucracy, etc. (because it's almost impossible for them to be fired). Over time, they infiltrate, and take over the entire system.
bro no shit, i got suspended three times because i was "wearing a drug dealers coat" aka a coat that was longer then most other peoples coats and went down to my knees. we lived in a town that regularly got covered in snow 6 months out of the year after i moved away from the prairies.
A lot of states are ignoring SCOTUS decisions lately. Particularly this and the Bruen decision. I’m willing to bet Steve won’t touch the later. Way too hot.
Those who purposely, willfully, and knowingly violate the law should be considered criminals and punished. Maybe if state officials who violate the law were imprisoned, then they would be less likely to violate the law in the future.
When I was in high school, I had a friend who wrote a comic about a bunch of us where we all had super powers, arch enemies, etc. In more than one issue, he portrayed the principal in a, well, unflattering light. He got in trouble once because I teacher confiscated an issue and handed it in to the principal and he was pissed. Now this may be a different story since it was on school grounds and he wasn't paying attention in class or something but it was funny to see how angry the principal got.
For some reason this reminds me of when I was a kid in the 90s, a cartoon I used to watch on Nickelolodeon - "Doug" - where he got in trouble for drawing a comic making fun of the school's lunch of mystery meat.
When I was in high school we actually had an official student newspaper published twice a week and distributed in the cafeteria. No attempt at subterfuge or concealment. I was the cartoonist for 3 years and I did some savage caricatures of the principal and other staff and faculty members. Nobody cared. This was back in the early 1970s when people weren't so uptight about everything.
At my high school, back in the late 1960s, we had a student post a series of short, fictional, stories about a teacher. They were entitled "Vernon, superheroine". On her backboard in her class. It was not derogatory. She loved it. The principal not so much. He said stop. The student did. And a tons of complaints went to him. He, wisely, relented. The worse that ever happened appened was the traffic jams in her class as students & teachers came by to read & giggle.
I really love that Steve puts some of these teenagers' reactions into context for the adults watching. I'm a mental health professional, and one of the most unexpected things I've learned is that adults have a really, really hard time remembering what it was like to be a teenager without prompting, and it causes a lot of invalidation when interacting with people that age. If you're a parent with teens, remember this - *you don't get to decide how your teen feels or what's a big deal to them.*
Teens have so little freedom in their their lives. They're basically prisoners while at school and puberty is rough physically and mentally. Adults have several options if their workplace is toxic, but schools usually DGAF because not doing things is always easier than addressing issues.
A school should have no say over anything a student post on the internet or says anywhere. The school officials should be arrested, charged, and prosecuted for conspiracy against rights and deprivation of rights under color of law, title 18 U.S.C. section 241,242. For conspiring against, depriving,violating the students 1st amendment,14th section 1 amendment, article 4 section 2 paragraph 1 constitutionally protected rights (liberties, privileges, immunities).
Unless if happens on campus, during a school event or during school hours schools should have ZERO ability to punish or penalize students. Just because kids may attend the a school does not automatically mean the school gets involved with any behavior that may violate school policies or rules. The exceptions may be contracts regarding behaviour and representation when wearing a school uniform (IE cheerleading football etc). Even then it seems like I recall a cheerleader suing over this a few years ago. I dont recall how it turned out.
I try to watch each of your videos. I do not always agree with our legal system, but your videos give me a dose of common sense along with a better understanding of how to work with our system. I am an engineer so I rarely have legal problem except for the occasional meetings on copyrights, trademarks and patents.
Principle missed out on the easiest slam dunk of their time in education. They should have created a few light hearted memes about the kid that made them in the first place and then used them to start a graphic design competition. "Best meme me", a day where the kids come together to learn how to use paint/photoshop etc to create a meme of the principle, best meme wins $20. Would have become the coolest principle in a matter of seconds.
Satire is perfectly legal and protected. What this student did was perfectly fine and doesn't deserve any punishment - period. The principal is completely in the wrong. He needs to resign and find a job away from people because he can't take the criticism. I also have teachers in my family; 4 our of 5 of my mom's cousins were teachers their entire lives. FYI: they all qualified for SNAP benefits while working full time as teachers.
As a teacher of 29 years in SE MI, you wear that as a badge. Our principal dressed as a ballerina in a tutu for costume day. This was partially due to nicknames earned doing his job fairly but kids still didn't like consequences. This principal is beloved by most and he just takes it in stride (Middle School) If you earned it fairly, own it! Wear it as a badge of honor
The school probably knows it will fail, but they're playing with house money. Unlike the kid's family, the school doesn't have to pay for a lawyer, the taxes do. So they can spend whatever they want, drag it out as far as they can, and in the process cause a great deal of trouble for the family. It's the same as when a cop arrests someone knowing the charge will never stick just to ruin his day and cost that person time and money. They aren't accountable for these things anymore.
I mean, it's such a slam dunk case that it wouldn't be hard to find a lawyer willing to work on contingency. They know they're going to get a settlement that will cover their costs if they take it even without their client having any money up front.
What’s funny was the principal in my high school was actually loved by the vast majority, if not all, of the students. That doesn’t mean you wanted to get sent to his office for mis behavior, but he was a great roll model and stand up guy. He disciplined kids as needed, but he also stood up for students to outside forces. The guy was everything you wanted in a principal. Man, how far we’ve fallen in 4 decades…
To be fair, most principals are probably decent people. However, we generally only hear about the bad ones in the news. In addition, this same "principle" probably applies to all professions.
Schools are horrible about getting their noses in stuff that is none of their business. Had I teen get in trouble for smoking in a parking lot in his car. The school heard about it and suspended him too. He wasn’t even on school grounds. It wasn’t during school hours either.
I always said what I wanted in school. In 4th grade I got in trouble and on the way to the office I stated "When my mom finds out she will shit bricks". In 10th grade I was in the office to get my whacks for what I had done. The principal hit my upper thighs and not my butt not once but 5 times. When it was done I turned and looked him straight in the face and told him that if he ever hit me like that again I would kill him. They found other ways to punish me after that. Also after that incident one of the ways they got me to act better in school was to give me 100% free access 24/7 to the schools very first computer. I was the first student to ever touch it and in 3 months I had teachers coming to me asking me programming questions and other computer advice on how to do stuff. It was the best thing they ever did for me. I also know that I got locked in the school many times and had to climb out the guidance office windows at 9pm. The custodial staff and teaching staff were all aware of this arrangement. They even told the local police to not bother me if I was climbing out the windows. For the rest of the school year I didn't get into much trouble because one of the penalties was that I would lose access to that computer. That summer I got my very first computer which was an Apple IIe. The day after I got it I had it all taken apart and in pieces all over the living room floor. When my foster father walked in and saw it the only thing he said was "I hope you can put it all back together because you are not going to get another one". I got it all back together and it worked fine and I took it to many computer club meetings. Also during that summer I had went to the area collage branch for computer programming classes. I dropped them because I was already ahead of the class. My biggest mistake back then since I would have graduated HS with an associates degree in computer programming and computer science. After that mess I still had all access to the computer labs at the college and nobody ever messed with me for being at the college long past closing hours. Teaching yourself Fortran, Cobal and Pascal was a bitch but I did learn them and some of the computer students and I had contests with our programming.
An example needs to be made of the principal, the board, and the superintendent. The consequences need to finally be catastrophic enough that they're too scared to do this a 3rd, 4th, and 100th time, despite having bottomless pockets full of taxpayers' money.
When I was in school, mocking administration was a routine pastime. I even helped print and distribute a short-lived underground newsletter. It was printed on a mimeograph that one of our teachers had access to, off campus. We did cause a bit of consternation, though no one was ever suspended and no lawsuits were filed.
In my high school, it was the two vice-principals that were humorless pricks, and, were the targets of our ridicule. In one of my photography classes, I photoshopped one of their heads onto a picture of a whip-weilding dominatric. I got a talking to by my teacher, but, NOT a suspension. Turns out the teachers held them in the same regard as the students...
When I was in high school, in civics class I was effectively told that I don’t have free speech rights while there. Something about other students possibly not wanting to hear spicy opinions while at school, but still being forced to be there.
More like the Supreme Court has ruled that schools are "special places." Just like you can't yell, "Fire!" in a public place if there is no fire, students can't ramble on with every wackadoodle theory or explicit rap lyrics in class. Teachers just want to teach. Sometimes, students need to shut their pie holes in school.
I’ve worked with a child who posted stupid memes and crap online where another student’s family complained. Nothing illegal, just bad taste and not directed towards another student. He ended up having to go before the assistant superintendent and because the child was rightfully frustrated he got snarky, and ultimately was suspended from school and put into alternative education. There was a GAL involved in the case but he and the family both did not want to make a first amendment issue out of this because of the nature of the posts and the attention it would draw to the family. The school completely overstepped his boundaries but at the end of the day they could claim that the student was disrespectful to the assistant superintendent to justify the suspension and change in placement. This still irritates me today as I was providing case management for him but my hands were tied and there was nothing I could do.I don’t see how the school and the school resource officers have any authority for stuff like this unless it was a direct threat to another student, bullying, or threat to the school.
What I find most disturbing is that instead of spending time working on the curriculum to improve the students' educations, the staff is perusing the social media networks looking for silly crap like this.
When I was in high school, we had an especially onerous band teacher who liked to scream and throw things at the students. Our lead first trumpet, who carried me and the other first trumpet to several ones at state, was also an excellent satirical cartoonist. One of the most popular cartoon series that he drew was of said band teacher using his "lower appendage" as a lasso to rope in a herd of recalcitrant students. This was even more funny as an "inside joke" because in this small farm town most of the students had done at least some roping. When the band teacher took the pictures to the superintendent he just laughed and showed him a whole collection of satirical cartoons of all the teachers and students that the artist had drawn. He had been collecting them for years and all the teachers found them hilarious. I know this as my dad was one of the teachers. I've no idea what happened to those drawings, the superintendent, teachers, and student himself are all dead now, but they would have made a great comic book.
I was pulled ONTO school property while I was smoking off the property, into the principals office to be searched. While I was walking inside behind the principal, I was stuffing all of my contraband into my pants😂 The principal did, however, find a spoon in my bag, and promptly called the police. The cops came in, asked me why I had a spoon, and I told them it was for my applesauce (it was). They flipped the spoon over, noticing that it was not burnt or anything, and looked at me. I asked, "What, do I look like a heroin addict to you or something?" And the cops said no, and walked out. The principal tried to taLk to them and get me into more trouble, but they basically told him that I had done nothing wrong and the fact that they had been called there was ridiculous in the first place. So I ended up getting in school suspension for my last 10 days of my senior year, for smoking before school hours, outside of school grounds.
we need to remind certain politically minded individuals that *first amendment speech is a constitutional right* facts don't care about your feelings :)
No it's not. As someone who was bullied at school and at home for my entire school years, yes the words hurt. Being called ugly and worthless everyday for years, beats you down.
@@catandrobbyfloresCorrect and words can be regulated off campus by school authorities. It doesn’t matter if the words hurt or not. In the situation you mentioned, bullying while off campus was specifically mentioned by the Supreme Court as within the school’s right to regulate. The problem for a case like in this video is that in the school has the difficult burden to prove a serious disruption of school classes or functions. In the cheerleader case (Supreme Court, Mahanoy v. B.L.) the school brought testimony that in an algebra class, they discussed it for 5-10 minutes for a couple of days. A single class having a 5-10 minute discussion twice hardly rises to the level of a serious disruption of the school.
Suspended for saying principal doesn't have sense of humor. Principal proves point.
😂
overreach, even if this were said AT the school they had no right to suspend the student.
Yeah, but how else are you going to teach the students to bow and scrape to fascist authority? /s
@@Back2SquareOne Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
@@ThatOpalGuythey probably do, according to the current SCOTUS opinion
I got in trouble off campus and the principal found out about it. (I was having trouble with my parent's divorce.) I was called into his office, where he asked me if things were going OK for me. He never mentioned any details or events, he was just being concerned with my well-being. He was always helpful to me and I made good decisions based on his comments to me. THAT is what a principal should be.
Kindness and care go a long way
Well, isn’t that special?
@@richardtibbetts574 Church lady...
The school quickly proved the student right when it comes to overly serious principal.
If you can get someone sacked/suspended/arrested/jailed for hurting your feelings you're not the oppressed, you're the oppressor.
When I worked at a school, we were told in training that the 1st amendment does not apply to staff or students. I left very quickly after I was told to embrace religion in a public school or be fired. You don’t have full rights under the law if you are in any institution, be it schools or prisons, even if you’re not in the building.
So the student makes fun of the Principal on social media for being too serious and thin skinned and the Principal then immediately proves them right?
Can't make this shit up. 😆
You might not be able to, but I could definitely make this up.
It’s really not that unique or interesting a premise. I’d be genuinely surprised if there wasn’t a sitcom episode identical to these circumstances.
The mere fact that the kid got suspended proves that he was right about the principal.
Absolutely. Maybe the principle should get suspended.
That person has no right being a Principal.
The Last part of Principal is PAL and that person is a Pal to No One especially the students.
His contract needs to be torn up along with every member of the School Boards to allow this to happen.
I'd bet the Principal was bullied in school so he is returning the favor to his students.
@@gretafortenberry5285 Really? I thought being thin skinned with no sense of humor was a job requirement for being a principal!
@@gretafortenberry5285 could not disagree more. Being a "pal" has nothing to do with being a principal. He is the Principal (ie, primary) Administrator/Supervisor/Director. His job is to ensure the school runs smoothly. That's it. Of course, not being a vindictive little a-hole is a big part of that because no organization can run smoothly if the boss is an a-hole. Therefore, a student posting memes that had absolutely zero impact on the smooth running of the school should not have been a concern whatsoever.
That he's a furry ?
Principal Jason Quick has resigned from Tullahoma HS effective June 30, 2023. He has been there three years. He had planned to stay until he reached retirement; however, he told a newspaper reporter that, "he had planned to stay and retire as principal in Tullahoma but things changed." As my grandmother would have said, "Do tell!"
I have been a High School principal, and feel qualified to observe that his sudden announced departure was not likely to have been entirely his own idea.
He was clearly unqualified
Our lovely school system has a 20% pass rate on state standardized testing. Imagine if they spent this much effort on actual education.
To be fair, standardized tests usually interfere with actually educating students.
@@GamesFromSpace That's why there are no standardized tests for professionals, right? Oh wait....
@@GamesFromSpaceSoo, how will the teacher know you learned the course??
I haven't seen anyone unironically using _standardized testing_ as a legitimate way to measure how much students are learning in ages. I highly recommend doing a little research into it.
Yours has that high a rate. By me they got the rate to 90%, by simply dropping the pass mark to 20%, and also by riding the curve so that 90% will pass, and then simplifying the syllabus as well, dropping all those hard subjects like math and science. Then wonder why universities have a first year that is essentially remedial school they added on, to weed out 80% of the initial intake, to solve the issue that the government said all who passed could go to university, and they would have the free edukashun. Oh yes, and teachers with multiple cases of having children with the students under them, as young as 12, still teaching.
the fact that this 'adult' principal's feelings could be hurt by a child, tells you everything you need to know about the principal. this 'adult' shouldn't be in control of a school, because they can't even 'control' their emotions.
different school ,same story. these first amendment violations have to stop
All violations of rights need to stop.
@@stuckgrenadepin.225By all State Agencies!!!
@@dangeary2134 by all governmental entities, federal/state/county/city/school board.
As soon as you get everyone in this country to agree on exactly what that looks like then you will have victory. Until then you’re going to have to keep dealing with this. Every person at a school thinks it’s their right and duty to make your child into what they see as a good little employee. That will go work for some other person and make them money. That’s why most of the training involves sitting in a desk for long periods of time they are trying to break you of the idea that you get to walk up wherever you want. that’s why this is never going to go away because they’re trying to train them for a corporate employee or minimum wage employee lifestyle. And all of that involves all of the stringent standards of behavior
@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 That's why instead of having a class on entrepreneurship we were taught square dancing.
If you take a job as a school principal and expect students to like you, then you're in the wrong profession. That dude needs to thicken his skin.
Are you telling us that educators can't learn from history? Shocking! Shocking, I say!! 😂
They do indeed learn but it's always the wrong lesson.
Do not call principals educators. Many work against the teachers and students to simply make their jobs easier.
Irony right?
@@_PatrickO - I was lumping them all together. I've known only a few teachers and principals that could actually think.
Well, not that shocking.... Lmao
When asked why he felt the lawsuit was necessary, he simply replied "it's a matter of principal."
🤣
I see what you did there. Well played!
Even though the words are spelled differently, it’s still pretty funny
A classic and it still made me laugh.
Streisand effect just made the principal famous. The illegal suspension just made the kid rich
Not if the school drags the courts for years with our taxpauer funds. The kid wont be able to keep the fight going because the funds will dry up
The now-famously-thin-skinned former Tullahoma High School Principal = Jason Quick.
Assistant Principal Derrick Crutchfield is also named as a defendant.
The reason this has clearly happened more than once is the reality of personalities in official school positions, many with ego and control issues. This isn't just common to schools but also other government roles of assumed power like police officers and judges as well. Bottom line is none of these people have special rights over others.
Private industry too. It is even worse there.
Cops arrested a guy for barking at a k-9 that barked at them from inside a parked vehicle.
And the officials you mentioned already have an incredible amount of power and 'discretion' within their spheres; but for the power-hungry, there's just never enough power that they won't try for more.
I had to fix an elevator inside of a public middle school a few months ago. I was taken aback by the way some teachers barked at students before first bell or during the passing periods.
But they will push their power as far as they can and make the tax payer defend their overreach as they play the victim in the whole matter.
I hope the student wins the lawsuit.
I used to be a teacher. He will if he sticks it out, but schools intentionally prolong trials like this for as many years as possible to bleed the other side dry of funds. Public schools regularly do illegal things like this knowing most won’t sue then punish the people holding them accountable as much as possible. Since the money comes from the government and not the people doing it they don’t care. And when the schools refuse to pay after losing judges rarely hold anyone in contempt so the families have to sue again.
They will also most likely retaliate against the kid and his relatives by doing things like allowing bullying (including violence) and overly harsh grading, excluding him from classes needed for college, and other issues. Small chance he’ll get any kind of help with higher education like letters of recommendation or provide documentations necessary for scholarship assistance. Not just for this kid mind you but all his relatives and possibly his friends too. The school might not, but I’ve seen all those things and worse from many different public schools over the years. Including flat out refusing to provide transcripts or proof of graduation to colleges of kids on black lists until after the enrollment acceptance deadlines. That was a common threat from my school and bragged about the students they did it to naming names so we could check.
@@AngryPug76 its not illegal, its just a poorly crafted portion of the legal system, legislated by the rich, for the rich.
@@ThatOpalGuy There are tons of laws and regulations that are indeed broken in these actions, making them illegal. I know, I spent two weeks talking to education lawyers about how my son was treated. They said we had a slam dunk case but it would take years and we might not get any money, so I should be prepared to put up at least 10k to start. What they do is indeed illegal, but they are protected by the power of the state.
@@AngryPug76 Principal at my school was scared of my Mom coming up there she didn't put up with any kind of bs and had friends on the school board in fact her and I were friends with the Super Intendant (Was a former Teacher that liked me yes I was a teachers pet in that class she was a cool teacher) so the Principal knew if they pissed Mom off she could make things bad for them
@liwojenkins My mom stopped alot of this bs from happening to me because she had friends on the school board and her and I were both well liked by the Super Intendant. Principal learned very quickly not to piss my Mom off 😂
When I was in second grade I got bullied there was a group of 4 boys who always waited for me to walk off school property and when I was about 100 yards away they would surround me and beat the crap out of me. About 3 months before summer came I got tired of it and one of the boys showed up alone 15 minutes after school let out and I was almost a quarter mile away from the school. He punched me in the nuts so I blacked his eye. I got suspended for a fight that took place off of school property in self-defense. The entire year the school did nothing about the bullies but the second I stood up for myself I got suspended. That's the problem with schools they pretend they have authority outside of school activities.
The actual individuals doing the suspensions needs to be monetarily held accountable for this to stop.
Assuming you meant monetarily.
@@The1stDukeDroklar yes and thank you. I will correct.
@@The1stDukeDroklarI like the idea of momentarily monetarily held accountable. That would be instantly losing their job and paying the student's family for violating the rights of the child.
That would end this nonsense very quickly.
They certainly should never be allowed anywhere near academia again.
You can, actually. It's called filing a claim against the government employee's Surety Bond. Cops, teachers, ect. They all have to have one. You can file a claim against it like Auto-Insurance for rights violations or injuries. And if the bond company pays out, the bond holder has to pay back the bond company every single CENT of money from their own coffers or else lose their ability to work for the state aka they get fired and can't be rehired.
Employers should not be allowed to demand you disclose social media accounts. What other purpose can that serve than to violate the 1A?
As a C/O, & MP, I’ve been called everything you could imagine. I’m shocked that so many get their tender feelings hurt over language.
Never underestimate a spc's ability to talk themselves into twice the trouble 🙄
The smaller the thing you're in charge of, the more draconian you get with your power.
If you were a civilian police officer you could violently arrest them for that.
As a person in charge of anything you must not have thin skin. As a retired senior NCO I've been called some really great stuff, I always tried to have fun with it. In the military they sometimes do it cause they actually like you. Your A DH, but you're ours!
Words carry weight 🫃🏼
These violations would stop happening if the people committing them were personally liable for the damages.
What "violation"?
@@prun8893The “violation” of suspending the student for doing nothing wrong.
@@prun8893 The school violated the students First Amendment rights, by punishing him for an online post.
@@clintonflynn815 And who should be held "personally liable". Publicly holding someone liable may get you sued for libel.
Most people understand this, but sadly there's illegal/illegitimate case law called "qualified immunity" which completely goes against our law.
"Let me just prove this student right and suspend him because of memes saying I'm overly serious."
Principal should be fired and barred from working for the government for a number of years.
It sounds like Government Overreach. All of the school staff who took part in this suspension should be fired for their stupidity and the students record of missed time and assignments should be corrected.
I want pictures of the staff so I can photoshop something rude for their benefit
Fired by who? Themselves?
@@Daves_Not_Here_Man_76 Agreed! I so want to be put into school detention. Let them try. ^-^
They don’t need fired they need publicly humiliated. People like that do not like to be publicly humiliated since it is clear that they already displayed thin skin.
@@gusplaerikr?
If only there were a group of people elected to a position to rule on such matters by vote...
I remember when i was in Jr high and High School, (it was the same building), that our principal was a model figure of decorum and respect.
When I moved schools between my 10th and 11th grade years, the principal of the new school was firm but fair, and was *admired* and respected by virtually everyone there, students and teachers alike.
Both students *and* teachers were held to the highest standards of decorum and respect. These people also understood that a little lampooning was a necessary safety valve to release tension. So much so that I actually witnessed a student assembly where a group of seniors lampooned just about everyone on the school's staff - and everyone thought it was hysterically funny, even the staff members themselves.
We have fallen far from that ideal.
Our principal had taken it a step further and would join in on any lampooning of himself. Ironically (or perhaps not), he earned more respect from doing so. Hypothetically, I would imagine that if someone drew him with cat ears, he'd probably get a costume headband and wear it for a day, at least until he got bored of it or had to meet with someone; he probably wouldn't wear a dress too, though.
@@redmasq Your principal was clearly a sane sober moral *adult*. Usually they are children in adult bodies these days.
@@johnpublic6582 He never seemed to fear being perceived as childish. As such, he usually let stuff roll off like water off a duck's back and often saw that there were bigger fish to fry. That said, he wasn't perfect, he certainly made mistakes, bad decisions, or more often, let smaller stuff slide until they got larger, but that was preferable to the alternative.
@@redmasq I've never met anyone who is perfect, and that is fine. What isn't fine is the masses of people that don't try.
I also got lucky with my principal Gaccha rolls. Most of them were good people who treated people like people, and people respected them for it.
The supreme court even ruled that rescinding a college recommendation for off-campus speech was a 1st amendment violation. Have to wonder if the administration here didn't know they were breaking the law or just were hoping that the student wouldn't know.
If you cannot handle an insult from a child, you don't need to be in education.
Why was the school monitoring students social media anyway?
Obviously, a principle doesn't have much else to do.
@clbcl5
I doubt that the school was monitoring anything.
The video mentioned several times the cheerleader case. In that case the girl sent her f bomb opinion to a couple of friends who then sent it to a couple of friends who then sent it to a coach and in the present day idiom, it went viral.
You can bet with near certainty that something similar happened in this case.
Most likely the student was ratted out by a junior Karen to the principal.
@@diamondjim7560and anyone who rats out someone else you should think when will they rat me out the same way?
Some of these school officials are so full of themselves they can't take a joke. Back in high school we had an extremely pompous library director (with some overly inflated & undeserved title). This was before social media by a few years. I took a picture of him off the school's website and manipulated the hell out of it in Photoshop. I left copies of it in random spots around campus. He was universally hated by the students, and most of the staff. It was a big hit. That man was out for BLOOD trying to figure out who did it. I could 100% see a person with a similar temperament doing this over memes.
I hope that now, as an adult, you see how horrible you were as a child. Just imagine if someone at your current workplace did that to you and all of your colleagues just sniggered at you. It's not too late to write a letter of apology to that library director.
@@commontater1785 As an adult I see that he was an even worse person than we thought he was at the time. A pompous ass using his little bit of authority to make the lives of students as difficult as possible. He spent his day sneaking up behind students making snarky comments trying to make you feel like you were doing something wrong. We spent our time in the library trying to avoid him at all costs. He deserved WORSE.
@@jblyon2 What I've found as I get older, is that maybe when I was young, I wasn't very good at judging people's intentions.
Did he 'sneak up' on you, or did you just get surprised because you didn't know he was there? How is he 'sneaking' if he is making his presence known by speaking to you? Were his comments 'snarky' or was he doing his job and calling out bad behavior?
Were you never actually doing something wrong, or did you just hide behind the excuse that he shouldn't have been able to catch on? That's a typical teenage thought, "Sure I was drinking in the locker room, but there's no way he could have known, so he's a jerk for accusing me.'
Isn't it his job to 'spend his day' keeping order amongst hundreds of teenagers whose parents aren't there to control them? Was he full of himself, of did he just assert his dominance and justified right to tell you what to do. No teenager likes being told what to do, even when they are wrong.
I don't know. I wasn't there. But if I were you, I would ask myself, do I often see 'pompous asses' around me? Do I regularly resent people in authority for enforcing rules?
@@commontater1785 He was on a power trip, sneaking up on students without making a sound, and would just stand there and start commenting when you finally noticed there was someone creepily staring over your shoulder.
I'll just say this. The man was forced into a quiet early retirement several years later after a slew of student and parent complaints about his behavior.
ok. I'm still not convinced that you can blame people for not making noise when they walk. I mean, it's not like we are all trucks backing up and we're supposed to make a beeping noise. But as for the rest of it, you were there and I wasn't.@@jblyon2
In high school in the 1980s I was drawing unflattering caricatures of my teachers in the school library. The librarian saw them and asked if I could do all of the teachers. Everyday I drew 2 or 3 of them and gave them to her. The beginning of the second semester I was walking by the library display case and all my drawings were on display.
My dad owned the building on your shirt for a few years in the 90's. He lived there while restoring and preserving the recording studio. It was like the music and cultural history of the place was being forgotten. It was being used as washer and dryer repair shop by the previous owner. I spent weekends and summers there while he saved that building from becoming another rundown commercial property. He treated it like a museum and so have the subsequent owners.
Long story boring, cool shirt brother!
Not boring, not at all!
@@newshodgepodge6329 Kind of you to say. Seeing that shirt has made me very nostalgic. I've got kids as old as I was then... I think I'll take them to visit my dad tomorrow. He will get a kick out of knowing a Michigan based lawyer youtuber is representing muscle shoals sound. I wonder what he'll think about steve's subscribers outnumbering the broadcast coverage of any radio or television station in the shoals area ten fold.
@@jonathoncopeland660 I'm glad you saw this . I figured I was the only person in colbert county who watched Steve lol. I think I have seen him wearing the shirt once before about a month or two ago. I'm glad your dad saved the building. I always heard Mick wrote "wild horses " in the bathroom there and the lyrics were written on the door. Any way you could confirm that? Probably just something I heard at Max's guitar shop down the road..
@@jonathanjohnson8656 100% factual those lyrics on the bathroom door. along with countless dirty poems and signatures. The largest and most prominent thing on the bathroom door was "Bob Seger" and it was about eye level. I heard about that door being replaced, along with the wood panel walls that tiny bathroom was covered with autographs and unreleased lyrics. I really hope they didn't wind up in a landfill, but no one I've asked knows where they went.
@@jonathoncopeland660 I hope someone at least took pictures.
Whatever happened to the schools that watched kids through the cameras of their chromebooks and suspended them for things the kids did at home?
@@chuck-ep2yron your personal computer you have that choice. Computers supplied by schools in 2020 were for zoom classes so the cameras couldn't be covered. I'm sure parents didn't expect the schools to invade their privacy during non-school hours so didn't instruct children to close the computer when not using it for school.
I remember that story. The school suspended some girls because they saw through the chromebook that they were smoking pot in their rooms. The parents sued for invasion of privacy but the school got off scott free.
When I was still in school, a teacher would tell us that freedom of speech only applied to adults because of accountability.
My remark of, "So you can only have free speech if you can be sent to jail for it"? Was blatantly ignored.
School administration has no business being on social media, outside the context of managing their own school's page and the posts being made directly on said page. Even if they hear about a student potentially inciting a disruption, it should be referred to the appropriate local authorities to investigate, which is definitely not the damn principle or their subordinates.
I remember when this happened, and the principle only accomplished having a couple million people talking about how ignorant he is. He only proved that he shouldn't be a principal and how goofy the guy is.
My Principal in Highschool was a grand old Gentleman from the Twenties, This was in Virginia in the early 1970s. He never would have been lampooned as he was loved by the student body. My Melvin B Landis Rest in Peace
Educators have an opportunity here to actually teach these students what constitutes free speech, and what is an appropriate action of response to it that sets you up to be in a position to be able to handle being “triggered”, in the words of todays youths
Tennessee? Teach?
Careful, that'll get you run out of town wearing a tar and feather suit down those parts!
Exactly. So the principal and teachers can go home and post funny "memes" of students and their parents. Make fun of them for being poor, mentally disabled, whatever they want. It is being done in personal time so it is 1st amendment protected. That would be the most effective lesson in free speech.
The student needs to post the "How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man" Meme. 😂
What happens out of school, off school property and not on school time is absolutely none of the schools business unless it poses a potential serious threat and danger to the school and students! And that is on school property on school time. But her educational system has gotten to a point where they want to dictate control and facilitate the actual thoughts opinions and daily lives of students at all hours! This is the definition of overage.
"Am I out of touch? No! It's the children who are wrong!"
Was this a Simpsons reference? I don't watch TV much.
@@KalijahAnderson YES, and if I remember right it's the principal Skinner saying this
@@JonathanMandrake To his credit, he actually considered the possibility.
Something like this happened when I was in high school. My freshman year was the first year my school had a technology class that was focused on PC repair. One of the older students in the class had a website that he had built and maintained from home on his own time. He had written some stuff on his site about the high school principal including nicknaming him "Sterile Darryl", somehow the principal found out about it and barged into the class to threaten the student that if he didn't take the offensive content down he would suspend him, the student flat out refused and then the principal threatened to call the cops on him and have him arrested. That principal retired within a year of that incident.
It's way more important to people in authority that people respect their authority than they actually do the job they were given the authority to do.
Absolutely. If it wasn’t at the school and during school hours, it’s the student’s personal time. His private life. A principal cannot dictate a student’s private life.
Obviously, the principal at this school, has only heard the first part of The Civil Rights Lawyer (Esq.) closing words about "Freedom Is Scary", and missed the most important part about "dealing with it".
But, as we all should know, the Constitution's guarantees of INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM also scares the feces out of law enforcement.
That principal should be fired and never allowed to hold a position in education ever again.
They have utter contempt for the First Amendment. This is pervading society nowadays.
Society as a whole is not constrained by the First Amendment. However the principal, taking action as a government employee, is. If anyone is showing contempt, it is those who choose to ignore this distinction.
My highschool (totally going to name and shame them, Gulf Breeze High circa 2009) attempted to suspend me because in a video of mine, which I filmed in my room, involved me opening a box I got in the mail with a simple pocket knife. I made zero reference to my school, the package was a videogame, the video was about the videogame. I was 18 at the time, additionally. I merely threatened to sue, and they left me be. Schools, moreso public schools, are totally insane.
Student: satirises principal’s draconianisticism policy.
Principal: Disciplines student, removing all doubt.
This principal just proved this kid's point
Attending high school often felt like living in a George Orwell novel.
Government jobs, such as teaching public school, attract people with tendencies towards communism, bureaucracy, etc. (because it's almost impossible for them to be fired). Over time, they infiltrate, and take over the entire system.
bro no shit, i got suspended three times because i was "wearing a drug dealers coat" aka a coat that was longer then most other peoples coats and went down to my knees.
we lived in a town that regularly got covered in snow 6 months out of the year after i moved away from the prairies.
@@notjimpickens7928 I mean, drug dealers are known to wear warm clothing -- nobody wants cold drugs, after all.
For me it was more like a Kafka novel.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 bro you made me spit out my coffee, im gonna steal that joke for later 🤣
Thank you for teaching us this stuff. 👍
What about renting the closest billboards, to the school, and plastering the above mentioned memes? 😂
He ow it ironic if the kid sued for damages and was able to finance his college education with a settlement.
A lot of states are ignoring SCOTUS decisions lately. Particularly this and the Bruen decision. I’m willing to bet Steve won’t touch the later. Way too hot.
Those who purposely, willfully, and knowingly violate the law should be considered criminals and punished. Maybe if state officials who violate the law were imprisoned, then they would be less likely to violate the law in the future.
When I was in high school, I had a friend who wrote a comic about a bunch of us where we all had super powers, arch enemies, etc. In more than one issue, he portrayed the principal in a, well, unflattering light. He got in trouble once because I teacher confiscated an issue and handed it in to the principal and he was pissed. Now this may be a different story since it was on school grounds and he wasn't paying attention in class or something but it was funny to see how angry the principal got.
Sounds like Captain Underpants. LOL similar story.
For some reason this reminds me of when I was a kid in the 90s, a cartoon I used to watch on Nickelolodeon - "Doug" - where he got in trouble for drawing a comic making fun of the school's lunch of mystery meat.
When I was in high school we actually had an official student newspaper published twice a week and distributed in the cafeteria. No attempt at subterfuge or concealment. I was the cartoonist for 3 years and I did some savage caricatures of the principal and other staff and faculty members. Nobody cared. This was back in the early 1970s when people weren't so uptight about everything.
Whether the school allowed it or not, does not negate the school’s authority to regulate school sanctioned papers with drawing , opinions, etc.
@@tvc1848 In the scope of public schools, I'd imagine "within reason," though what that boundary is can be murky
At my high school, back in the late 1960s, we had a student post a series of short, fictional, stories about a teacher. They were entitled "Vernon, superheroine". On her backboard in her class. It was not derogatory. She loved it. The principal not so much. He said stop. The student did. And a tons of complaints went to him. He, wisely, relented. The worse that ever happened appened was the traffic jams in her class as students & teachers came by to read & giggle.
I really love that Steve puts some of these teenagers' reactions into context for the adults watching. I'm a mental health professional, and one of the most unexpected things I've learned is that adults have a really, really hard time remembering what it was like to be a teenager without prompting, and it causes a lot of invalidation when interacting with people that age. If you're a parent with teens, remember this - *you don't get to decide how your teen feels or what's a big deal to them.*
Teens have so little freedom in their their lives. They're basically prisoners while at school and puberty is rough physically and mentally.
Adults have several options if their workplace is toxic, but schools usually DGAF because not doing things is always easier than addressing issues.
Great report Steve, any educator who thinks this is not protected speech needs some recurrent training in the Constitution or just move to N Korea.
You would think the school would know what the 1st amendment is.
A school should have no say over anything a student post on the internet or says anywhere.
The school officials should be arrested, charged, and prosecuted for conspiracy against rights and deprivation of rights under color of law, title 18 U.S.C. section 241,242. For conspiring against, depriving,violating the students 1st amendment,14th section 1 amendment, article 4 section 2 paragraph 1 constitutionally protected rights (liberties, privileges, immunities).
Unless if happens on campus, during a school event or during school hours schools should have ZERO ability to punish or penalize students. Just because kids may attend the a school does not automatically mean the school gets involved with any behavior that may violate school policies or rules. The exceptions may be contracts regarding behaviour and representation when wearing a school uniform (IE cheerleading football etc). Even then it seems like I recall a cheerleader suing over this a few years ago. I dont recall how it turned out.
Mr. Lehto, you always do an amazing job of pronouncing the names of towns here in Tennessee correctly.
Great job sir.
I try to watch each of your videos. I do not always agree with our legal system, but your videos give me a dose of common sense along with a better understanding of how to work with our system. I am an engineer so I rarely have legal problem except for the occasional meetings on copyrights, trademarks and patents.
Thanks for addressing this. I really appreciate your analysis of the topics you bring to your channel.
Principle missed out on the easiest slam dunk of their time in education. They should have created a few light hearted memes about the kid that made them in the first place and then used them to start a graphic design competition. "Best meme me", a day where the kids come together to learn how to use paint/photoshop etc to create a meme of the principle, best meme wins $20. Would have become the coolest principle in a matter of seconds.
Satire is perfectly legal and protected. What this student did was perfectly fine and doesn't deserve any punishment - period. The principal is completely in the wrong. He needs to resign and find a job away from people because he can't take the criticism.
I also have teachers in my family; 4 our of 5 of my mom's cousins were teachers their entire lives. FYI: they all qualified for SNAP benefits while working full time as teachers.
As a teacher of 29 years in SE MI, you wear that as a badge. Our principal dressed as a ballerina in a tutu for costume day. This was partially due to nicknames earned doing his job fairly but kids still didn't like consequences. This principal is beloved by most and he just takes it in stride (Middle School) If you earned it fairly, own it! Wear it as a badge of honor
There are appropriate ways to handle public insults.
See Rocky Balboa deal with Apollo Creed during the press conference in the second Rocky movie
Principal should be fired and the district pay dearly.
In the 90s, I got suspended for having drawn comic books at home, and bringing them in and leaving them in my locker. I sHoULd hAvE sUeD.
The schools think your kids don't belong to you
The school probably knows it will fail, but they're playing with house money. Unlike the kid's family, the school doesn't have to pay for a lawyer, the taxes do. So they can spend whatever they want, drag it out as far as they can, and in the process cause a great deal of trouble for the family. It's the same as when a cop arrests someone knowing the charge will never stick just to ruin his day and cost that person time and money. They aren't accountable for these things anymore.
I mean, it's such a slam dunk case that it wouldn't be hard to find a lawyer willing to work on contingency. They know they're going to get a settlement that will cover their costs if they take it even without their client having any money up front.
You nailed it Steve. These problems could be avoided with some simple policy reviews by these schools general counsel.
What’s funny was the principal in my high school was actually loved by the vast majority, if not all, of the students. That doesn’t mean you wanted to get sent to his office for mis behavior, but he was a great roll model and stand up guy. He disciplined kids as needed, but he also stood up for students to outside forces. The guy was everything you wanted in a principal.
Man, how far we’ve fallen in 4 decades…
To be fair, most principals are probably decent people. However, we generally only hear about the bad ones in the news. In addition, this same "principle" probably applies to all professions.
It sounds like someone is going to be receiving a lesson in humility.
Schools are horrible about getting their noses in stuff that is none of their business. Had I teen get in trouble for smoking in a parking lot in his car. The school heard about it and suspended him too. He wasn’t even on school grounds. It wasn’t during school hours either.
Teen was breaking the law lol. Thats not a free speech thing. Smoking is illegal under 18.
@@terryarmbruster9719 I was unaware school administrators were responsible for enforcing vice laws off school grounds.
That is why the Bong Hits for Jesus case was such a bad decision
one of my dad's favorite sayings was "what other people think about you is none of your business".
This is generally true unless its jury.
I hope he win. This is not ever censor, it s just a campus administrator being butt hurt abusing his power to avenge his feeling.
Taking all bets on how many judges rule in favor of the school in a direct thumb to the supreme court.
I always said what I wanted in school. In 4th grade I got in trouble and on the way to the office I stated "When my mom finds out she will shit bricks". In 10th grade I was in the office to get my whacks for what I had done. The principal hit my upper thighs and not my butt not once but 5 times. When it was done I turned and looked him straight in the face and told him that if he ever hit me like that again I would kill him. They found other ways to punish me after that. Also after that incident one of the ways they got me to act better in school was to give me 100% free access 24/7 to the schools very first computer. I was the first student to ever touch it and in 3 months I had teachers coming to me asking me programming questions and other computer advice on how to do stuff. It was the best thing they ever did for me. I also know that I got locked in the school many times and had to climb out the guidance office windows at 9pm. The custodial staff and teaching staff were all aware of this arrangement. They even told the local police to not bother me if I was climbing out the windows. For the rest of the school year I didn't get into much trouble because one of the penalties was that I would lose access to that computer. That summer I got my very first computer which was an Apple IIe.
The day after I got it I had it all taken apart and in pieces all over the living room floor. When my foster father walked in and saw it the only thing he said was "I hope you can put it all back together because you are not going to get another one". I got it all back together and it worked fine and I took it to many computer club meetings. Also during that summer I had went to the area collage branch for computer programming classes. I dropped them because I was already ahead of the class. My biggest mistake back then since I would have graduated HS with an associates degree in computer programming and computer science. After that mess I still had all access to the computer labs at the college and nobody ever messed with me for being at the college long past closing hours. Teaching yourself Fortran, Cobal and Pascal was a bitch but I did learn them and some of the computer students and I had contests with our programming.
Oh yeah, I remembered (vaguely) Fortran & Pascal. Wasn't it COBOL, not Cobal?
An example needs to be made of the principal, the board, and the superintendent. The consequences need to finally be catastrophic enough that they're too scared to do this a 3rd, 4th, and 100th time, despite having bottomless pockets full of taxpayers' money.
When I was in school, mocking administration was a routine pastime. I even helped print and distribute a short-lived underground newsletter. It was printed on a mimeograph that one of our teachers had access to, off campus. We did cause a bit of consternation, though no one was ever suspended and no lawsuits were filed.
The principal should have consulted with the American Government / Civics teacher prior to taking action.
In my high school, it was the two vice-principals that were humorless pricks, and, were the targets of our ridicule. In one of my photography classes, I photoshopped one of their heads onto a picture of a whip-weilding dominatric. I got a talking to by my teacher, but, NOT a suspension. Turns out the teachers held them in the same regard as the students...
Didn't the Supreme Court settle this yet again LAST YEAR? There is no contest who is in the wrong.
Our principal had a very good attitude about such things. He was good natured and would have handled this by posting the memes in his office.
When I was in high school, in civics class I was effectively told that I don’t have free speech rights while there. Something about other students possibly not wanting to hear spicy opinions while at school, but still being forced to be there.
More like the Supreme Court has ruled that schools are "special places." Just like you can't yell, "Fire!" in a public place if there is no fire, students can't ramble on with every wackadoodle theory or explicit rap lyrics in class. Teachers just want to teach. Sometimes, students need to shut their pie holes in school.
I’ve worked with a child who posted stupid memes and crap online where another student’s family complained. Nothing illegal, just bad taste and not directed towards another student. He ended up having to go before the assistant superintendent and because the child was rightfully frustrated he got snarky, and ultimately was suspended from school and put into alternative education. There was a GAL involved in the case but he and the family both did not want to make a first amendment issue out of this because of the nature of the posts and the attention it would draw to the family. The school completely overstepped his boundaries but at the end of the day they could claim that the student was disrespectful to the assistant superintendent to justify the suspension and change in placement. This still irritates me today as I was providing case management for him but my hands were tied and there was nothing I could do.I don’t see how the school and the school resource officers have any authority for stuff like this unless it was a direct threat to another student, bullying, or threat to the school.
If you are off campus and not at a school sponsored function, they have NO CONTROL over your actions. Do NOT give gov't or their agents more power!
Bathroom wall graffiti, welcome to the 21st Century.
The principal should be suspended permanently.
ironically his efforts to suppress those images those memes has made them spread so much further.
Dude should just resign at this point.
What I find most disturbing is that instead of spending time working on the curriculum to improve the students' educations, the staff is perusing the social media networks looking for silly crap like this.
When I was in high school, we had an especially onerous band teacher who liked to scream and throw things at the students. Our lead first trumpet, who carried me and the other first trumpet to several ones at state, was also an excellent satirical cartoonist. One of the most popular cartoon series that he drew was of said band teacher using his "lower appendage" as a lasso to rope in a herd of recalcitrant students. This was even more funny as an "inside joke" because in this small farm town most of the students had done at least some roping. When the band teacher took the pictures to the superintendent he just laughed and showed him a whole collection of satirical cartoons of all the teachers and students that the artist had drawn. He had been collecting them for years and all the teachers found them hilarious. I know this as my dad was one of the teachers. I've no idea what happened to those drawings, the superintendent, teachers, and student himself are all dead now, but they would have made a great comic book.
Those who fail to learn their history....
If the principal was smart he would say he likes the memes, so they would instantly become not cool.
I was pulled ONTO school property while I was smoking off the property, into the principals office to be searched.
While I was walking inside behind the principal, I was stuffing all of my contraband into my pants😂
The principal did, however, find a spoon in my bag, and promptly called the police. The cops came in, asked me why I had a spoon, and I told them it was for my applesauce (it was). They flipped the spoon over, noticing that it was not burnt or anything, and looked at me. I asked, "What, do I look like a heroin addict to you or something?" And the cops said no, and walked out. The principal tried to taLk to them and get me into more trouble, but they basically told him that I had done nothing wrong and the fact that they had been called there was ridiculous in the first place. So I ended up getting in school suspension for my last 10 days of my senior year, for smoking before school hours, outside of school grounds.
The authoritarians want the power of the public office but not the ridicule that comes with it.
we need to remind certain politically minded individuals that *first amendment speech is a constitutional right*
facts don't care about your feelings :)
Bingo
As well as the 2nd and 4th.
Unless you're a cop. Their feelings mean more to our politicians and elected officials
@@joshuagibson2520 Let's add 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments too, while we are at it. 🙂
How petty! These school teachers and administrations need a hug!
Sticks and stones can break my bones
But names can never harm me
It was true back when
And it’s still true today
No it's not. As someone who was bullied at school and at home for my entire school years, yes the words hurt. Being called ugly and worthless everyday for years, beats you down.
@@catandrobbyfloresCorrect and words can be regulated off campus by school authorities. It doesn’t matter if the words hurt or not.
In the situation you mentioned, bullying while off campus was specifically mentioned by the Supreme Court as within the school’s right to regulate.
The problem for a case like in this video is that in the school has the difficult burden to prove a serious disruption of school classes or functions.
In the cheerleader case (Supreme Court, Mahanoy v. B.L.) the school brought testimony that in an algebra class, they discussed it for 5-10 minutes for a couple of days. A single class having a 5-10 minute discussion twice hardly rises to the level of a serious disruption of the school.
@@catandrobbyfloresOr it makes you stronger. Depends on the person and how they react to such words. It depends on their mental strength.
If he principal had showed up in a cat costume, he'd have become the coolest principal ever...