(NOTE: It continues to amaze most cyberbullying experts that school officials persist in conducting illegal searches of students’ cell phones. This is not the first case of this sort, nor will it be the last. School officials need to remember that not only do the students whose phones they seize have rights — so do the people who call the student and expect their communications to remain private. At least there was a police officer involved here, but that will probably be insufficient to excuse the school officials’ behavior. Expect this one to be settled out of the court and the student reinstated. – Mike)
Student expelled for “gang” photos on cell phone
By CYNTHIA BULLION
Times-Tribune News Staff
Published: Tuesday, September 1, 2009
DESOTO COUNTY – The ACLU of Mississippi has hit the DeSoto County School District with another lawsuit – this time for allegedly expelling a student after an illegal search of his cell phone turned up “gang” photos.
The district was also named in a lawsuit, recently settled, that claimed six black students were wrongfully arrested following an argument on a school bus in Southaven.
In the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Oxford on Tuesday, Jennifer Wade said her 12-year-old son and Southaven Middle School honor student, Richard, had his phone confiscated by several of his football coaches, his class principal and a Southaven Police Department sergeant after reading a text message from his father during class last August.
The school has a policy banning cell phone use and allows for teachers and coaches to take a student’s cell phone and turn it over to office personnel for parents to pick up after paying a fine.
The lawsuit claims SMS staff, however, crossed the line by looking through personal and private data on the phone and then using that data to kick Richard Wade out of school for the remainder of the academic year.
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