By Rhonda Denny, Esq. In an increasingly common scenario, a teenage girl takes a sexually suggestive naked or semi-naked picture of herself and sends it from her cell phone to her boyfriend’s cell phone.    They break up and the boyfriend passes along the picture to his friends, and eventually the picture is passed along by [...]

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Mike Tully on February 24th, 2009

It’s only appropriate that this new blog, “Substantial Disruption,” be officially launched on the 40th birthday of Tinker v Des Moines Independent Community School District, the seminal case in the of freedom of expression by students in American public schools.  In fact, this blog takes its name from the “substantial disruption” test laid down by [...]

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Mike Tully on February 24th, 2009

Ryan Graves Staff Writer The first film that kicked off the Leonard A. Oakland Film Festival impressed the audience on Friday night. The film was based on the book “Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers,” by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. The documentary was made by Mike and Tim Eaton, [...]

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Mike Tully on February 24th, 2009

By 365gay Newscenter Staff 02.23.2009 1:35pm EST (Washington) The Supreme Court said Monday that it would not take the case of a Kentucky high school student who wants to sue his school district over a policy that allegedly barred him from expressing opposition to homosexuality. The justices did not comment in denying the appeal of [...]

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© 2009 Student Press Law Center February 19, 2009 WASHINGTON – Students, newspaper advisers, school board representatives, and First Amendment advocates filed into a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington yesterday to debate, for the third year in a row, the merits of student free press legislation in their state. Senate Bill 5946, introduced this [...]

Continue reading about Free speech advocates appeal to Wash. State Senate for third chance at student press bill (SPLC)

Mike Tully on February 24th, 2009

By Fiona Gray ONE in seven teachers has suffered abuse from pupils on the internet or via mobile phone, new figures reveal. Scottish teachers have reported children writing sexually obscene comments about them on social networking sites, superimposing their faces onto pornography and posting videos of them on websites. MORE

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Mike Tully on February 24th, 2009

By MARIANNE EISENBRANDT For The Herald News SHOREWOOD — The students and staff at the Troy Middle School didn’t know what to expect when their recent assembly was interrupted by a verbal act of bigotry and hatred towards a visiting Muslin exchange student from Afghanistan. It took a few moments before the audience realized that [...]

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Parents of children bullied at school will be able to complain to an independent body under new Government measures.   By Ben Leach Last Updated: 6:41PM GMT 22 Feb 2009 Families who feel their complaints about bullying and exclusions have not been handled fairly will be able to complain to the Local Government Ombudsman. The [...]

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Mike Tully on February 24th, 2009

The Pink Shirt Day movement started a couple years ago when two Nova Scotia high school students, David Shepherd and Travis Price, decided to take a stand against bullying in their school. Roused to action after seeing a younger student harassed on his first day of school for wearing a pink polo shirt, the two [...]

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