School District Threatens Suit Over Parent's Blog

penguin_dance writes "A Texas School District is threatening to sue a parent over what it terms 'libelous material' or other 'legally offensive' postings on her web site and are demanding their removal. Web site owner Sandra Tetley says they're just opinions. The legal firm sending the demand cited 16 items, half posted by Tetley, the rest by anonymous commentators to her blog. The alleged libelous postings 'accuse Superintendent Lynne Cleveland, trustees and administrators of lying, manipulation, falsifying budget numbers, using their positions for "personal gain," violating the Open Meetings Act and spying on employees, among other things.' The problem for the district is that previous courts have ruled that governments can't sue for libel. So now, in a follow-up story, the lawyers say the firm 'would file a suit on behalf of administrators in their official capacities and individual board members. The suit, however, would be funded from the district's budget.' So far, Tetley hasn't backed down, although she said she'll 'consult with her attorneys before deciding what, if anything, to delete.'"

Actual content of dispute?

[stormguard2099]

after I RTFA i didn't see where they mentioned the actual content in dispute. Could someone point out where this libel actually is on the site? I would like to read what GSID is actually trying to remove before I form an opinion on the matter.

Re:Easy

[Mike89]

Sorry to comment-jack, but I think you guys here on Slashdot will be interested in this, it's the first chance I've really had to discuss it, and it's extremely relevant to this thread.

Sorry in advance that it's poorly written, my brains frazzled from studying and I don't have time to plan it properly.

About 6 weeks ago I was 'removed' from my school (in Victoria, Australia) for writing a blog. I'm eighteen, doing my VCE (Year 12) and two days after writing it my Mum was called and asked to bring me in (and asked to pull me out of work specifically for it.. she didn't, so they waited at the school until seven so that they could do it that night).

The blog in question was satirical, and made fun of numerous things about the school (spending so much on toilets when they're still so crap, our health teachers poor understanding of some contraception methods, the fact we put had 'annual festivities' to impress visitors from Japan, my new VET Multimedia teachers, a picture of a condom found on the floor in the Year 7-9 toilets (12 to 15)). I named some names (of the teachers, and one student who made a webpage which received an award despite coming straight out of 1995). I realise in retrospect I did a lot of things wrong, but hear me out.

I was told, in the 'meeting', that I was not to come back to school. Clear my locker out and leave. She (the principal) would 'speak to the region' and I'd probably get transferred. I had 4 weeks to go, then exams. Excluding holidays. In the first week, nothing was done, we waited to find out what was happening (heard very little). Then 2 weeks of holidays (which of course no-one works), then the next week we were told I'd be sitting my SACs at my house (with teacher supervision) and doing my exams at another school 30 km away. In the meeting, I'd offered EVERYTHING to keep myself there. I apologised, my Mum tried to get her to address the more pressing concerns in the blog (neither of my VET Multimedia teachers were qualified to teach the course), but she ignored this. I was told to take the blog down or they'd speak to their legal team (apparently some parts were defammatory).

In the end, I was able to contact my teachers - through her.. A very slow process. Now, it's exam time. I've done alright so far, but my ENTER score is seriously going to suffer from the fact I missed out on the most crucial part of the year. Does the school care? No. The Department of Education said that her actions were completely reasonable.. This is despite the fact she was also mentioned in said blog, as the handicap parking spot in the car park was removed and, ala, a spot for her showed up :).

So, this isn't the first case. Oh, and wish me luck with my exam tomorrow..

If you want to ask questions, just reply here and I'll answer them. Don't waste your time flaming me, I realise in retrospect to watch what you say online, but come on.. it was meant for a cheap laugh, and my serious attempts to address the issues were ignored. It was a creative outlet for me and it's seriously affected my future.. alas, I have no recourse it'd seem. Also, anyone who commented on the blog was banned from all Year 12 events - Muck up day, valedictory (graudation) dinner, etc.

Australia.. so much for a free country.

Re:Easy

[Mike89]

Note: I should point out.. I'm aware Australia doesn't have freedom of speech laws. Also, I was a grade A student (for most things), and my final mark will still go on my previous schools records.. so really, they haven't lost out at all.

Oh, and one of the unqualified multimedia teachers ended up not being at school the next day - she (unsurprisingly) had a Professional Development day. Apparently they were completing their Multimedia certificate to be qualified to teach, but weren't legally allowed to yet. The teachers also didn't realise they had to keep copies of assessment work - all of our work was deleted 'upon review', to 'make it easier' for the teacher (because, you know, he couldn't move it to a "Been Marked" folder) - this came up when I asked him why I'd lost marks.. he told me he didn't know because my work was deleted weeks ago.

Re:Absolute defense.

[westlake]

Isn't truth an absolute defense to an accusation of libel ?

The law rarely deals in absolutes. The shotgun approach where you fire off dozens of accusations in the hope that at least some of them will stick suggests a malicious or reckless disregard for the truth.

Re:Elected Officials

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it's at least odd if not sad or offensive that the school budgets will be used to prosecute this even if school districts can't directly sue anyone. The fact that they are doing this makes me suspicious of their arguments. Not that it really surprises me, educators and school administrators sometimes are known to go on goofy power trips, but knowing nothing about this case, I should try to be fair about it. It's also possible that the parent just has some kind of axe to grind because of some perceived or minor offense.

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a year 12 student at a Queensland high school last year, and it is becoming quite clear the state of Australian schools is declining. We had a teacher, who like yours, was unqualified to teach us, even if he was a substitute. The students of my class didn't mind too much because he was only a temp, right up until he made a 40 minute phone call during one of our classes on his mobile, without even leaving the classroom. We tried to talk to the principal but anyone who questioned a teacher was threatened with instant suspension.

Re:Its not that hard a problem.

[JoelKatz]

"I say: Kryten250 did, at some unspecified time and place, suck a donkey's balls.
You then sue me. That makes you the plaintiff. Can you prove that you didn't, ever, suck donkey balls?"

There's probably a name for this logical fallacy.

Men play hockey.
Socrates never played hockey.
Therefore Socrates is not a man.

That the Plaintiff doesn't have to prove that there is no possible way the statement is true doesn't mean the plaintiff doesn't have the burden of proof.

Re:Easy

[ben0207]

Pedophile is the Yank (incorrect) spelling.

Paedophile is the British (correct) spelling.

Re:Easy

[rastilin]

That's a career killing comment, no wonder they freaked out. If the evidence is stacking up they probably should be fired but it's still not a good idea to post something like this on the internet since he could be assaulted. If he hasn't done anything it would be solely your fault. Besides, he could just be creepy and his actions be misinterpreted. Unless you have actual proof it's irresponsible to say things like that.

Without checking your actual post I can't know what you said but from the snippets you've posted already it sounds like you were spreading chaos around with a big shovel. The internet can be read by anyone, so a good analogy would be you writing this down and nailing it on a tree somewhere. Heck, if I implied corruption and sexual deviancy in my teachers, wrote it down and hammered it on a tree in my suburb, with my name on it. The end result would be pretty much the same as in your case.

Now I live in Australia myself and I love it here. The taxes aren't too bad, crime is minimal and there's an excellent social security net. Try doing this anywhere and you'll get the same result. Especially if you were silly enough to say something like this in your final year.

My actual point is this. They were fighting words, they offended people very badly, as fighting words tend to do. So now they're on the warpath against you. Hardly surprising.

Sounds familiar

[SupaYoda]

I used to run a regularly updated blog that covered, among other things, a situation in the town I live in. Basically, a group of local politicians (or their cronies) hijacked the offices they were voted out of by filling the open spots of mayor and city council that were conveniently vacated by the people that won the election. Those people who had been elected (not the ones who were voted out and later appointed) left under a series of very suspicious circumstances, leaving the impression that they were bullied out of office. The ones that came back served local business interests. The locals, fed up with what was going on, decided that the best way out was to dissolve the city and be annexed into the city next door. Upon following the state law, this group of locals was successful in their efforts and were supposed to have a vote on the annexation. The town "leaders" didn't want that to happen, so they fought the election in courts-- which they lost. So they racked up a large amount of debt for the town, the town that agreed to annex pulled out because they didn't want the debt, and our town never saw an election.

The local media picked up very little of the story, so I called the town out on its actions on my blog. It got quite a bit of attention from the locals.

The town officials didn't dare come after me, but one of the local business leaders (and a friend of the council and mayor) did. He showed up on my doorstep, came inside my home, and raised his voice in front of my toddler daughter and paid no attention to the fact that he was scaring the crap out of her. While I used no names or businesses or people, and there was more that one person who could have fit the description, the business owner told me that he had the right to sue me. I spoke with no less than four lawyers who told me that he was delusional. The owner's rationale was this: If I wrote a convincing blog that affected the outcome of a local election, the town would be absorbed into another town that has building codes and zoning laws, and he'd have to spend money to get his buildings up to code. So he would sue me for the money he "lost". During the meeting, he fiddled with his pocket and asked me questions like, "What was your intent in publishing this?" Yes, I was being recorded, and I suspect he was fishing for something because someone told him he had nothing.

Nevertheless, he said that I'd incorrectly stated someone else's opinion. (This person was also never named.) While I'd talked to the person previously and published their correct opinion, that opinion changed when I spoke to them afterward-- leading me to believe that he'd had a similar visit. I had no way to back up my claims, so I went ahead and corrected the statement with an editor's note. I was also told that I'd incorrectly identified the mayor as being the owner of a particular business, but there were no defaming statements made, so it was no big deal. I've since been told that the mayor IS the owner, so I just took the sentence out altogether to avoid confusion. They even tried to say that I'd misquoted the mayor, but the quote I'd published was a quote from the local newspaper and was noted as such. Not to mention, the reporter had a taped recording of what the mayor said, regardless as to what he meant to say.

My little meeting actually DID change the way I wrote, and it made me an even bigger thorn in their side. Since they were going to play hardball, I started collecting paperwork to back up every single thing I wrote, and they could no longer tell people I was lying. I even published pictures of the "park" they claimed to have on their publicity website and turned some heads, and they had to change the wording to say that they were going to have a park in the future. (I got a couple of phone calls from state legislators about that one.) When they passed a city ordinance to discourage a peaceful demonstration at a town event, I published the ordinance and pointed out in the wording that they could still prot

Re:Elected Officials

[Chris Burke]

I like the observation that court precedent says you can't be sued for libeling the government, so instead they decide they're going to sue on behalf of the individuals in their official capacities (because the alleged libel wasn't about them in their private life, it was about their performance in their official capacities).

Their "official capacities" are being members of the government. So what good is the precedent if it only protects you from suit for libeling the government, if they can just sue on behalf of the individuals that make up the government being criticized? Does it matter if I name names? Can I say "Katrina proved that FEMA was a mismanaged clusterfuck of cronyism and incompetence all the way up to the director" but not "Katrina proved that former FEMA director Michael Brown was an incompetent crony"? Or does the former imply the latter such that Michael Brown could still sue me?

We'll see what happens, but I kinda hope the case gets dismissed on the grounds that there is no difference between the government and "administrators in their official capacities" in the government.