Doninger
Blog posts about the Avery Doninger Case
Teach your children well
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 09:40“I hate you,” she shouted as she stormed out of the room and slammed the door. Shaken and hurt, I sat quietly. I will give her some time to calm down, and then go to her, let her know that I love her, even if I do things that I think are the best for her and she disagrees, even if she behaves in an inappropriate way. I can help her with that another time.
Does this sound familiar? I suspect that anyone with a teenager at home must have experienced something like this. The teenage years are difficult, not only because of the raging hormones, but also because of the need for teenagers to separate themselves from their parents and authority figures, to establish their own identity, authority, sense of self worth, and find ways to express it.
As much as I hate the phrase, “The Internet has changed everything”, there is a hint of truth about it for teenagers. At home, at night, they can shout and slam virtual doors online. They can call the administration of their school douchebags. They can create MySpace parody pages of their school administrators.
Of course, this presents another problem. These outbursts, which in previous years might have been confined to the family room, are now available for everyone to see, including the douchebags at the central office.
It is reasonable to believe that the school administrators may also be shaken and hurt by these outbursts. Since they are acting “In Loco Parentis” at the schools and since they should be much better trained in dealing with the traumas and dramas of teenagers, you would expect them to handle the situation even better than I have in my house.
Yet school administrators are also human. They err. They fail. Since their parental relationships are based upon a job, instead of deep familial love of the children, they may act in ways that are more focused on defending their reputations and their jobs than on being good educators.
It seems as if this provides a useful framework for understanding what went on with Avery Doninger and the school administration at Lewis Mills High School in Burlington, CT. Avery wrote a blog post at home one evening after a dispute with the school administration about a concert she was helping organize. She referred to the ‘douchebags’ at the central office. Some of the administrators’ feelings were hurt and they lashed back at Avery. The case is currently in the courts. Yet Avery’s case is not the only one of its kind.
From the Student Press Law Center, I’ve learned of the case of Justin Layshock. At his grandmother’s house one evening, Justin created a parody profile of his high school principal, Eric Trosch, intimating that the principal was a drunk and a drug user. Mr. Trosch responded in a manner more like Paula Schwartz and Karissa Niehoff from Lewis Mills High School and focused on his reputation rather than his responsibilities as an educator.
In a rather bizarre move, the school district blamed the ACLU for the “damaged reputation because of the publicity the lawsuit elicited”. So, yet again, we see a school administration more concerned about reputation than pedagogical interests.
In a preliminary ruling on the Layshock case, a judge wrote, “They [the school administration] may not like something students say on their home computers and post on the Internet, but it’s for the parents to decide what, if any, discipline is appropriate.”
Yet a bigger question remains for me. What happens when parents show their children love and stand up for the children when they express themselves poorly, but legally? What happens when children learn that what they say matters and that freedom of speech needs to be protected?
Avery will be spending a year working Americorps. In a subsequent article about Justin Layshock’s case, we learn that Justin spent last summer volunteering at an orphanage in Africa.
In can be very difficult for parents and educators to act in love and in the best educational interests of their children when the children criticize them. I must admit, I don’t always do it right myself. But, by managing ones hurt and focusing on helping the child become more effective in speaking up clearly and strongly, we will create a new generation of leaders, like Avery and Justin and our country, and our world will be better off for it.
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A Foreseeable Risk of Substantial Disruption
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 04:33Thursday was a bad day for me. I received an email from a media watchdog organization declining my job application. I received an email from the DNCC declining my application to be a blogger at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, and I received a copy of the Second Circuit of Appeals decision to uphold the District Courts denial of the Doninger’s preliminary injunction motion. Yet all of these tied together into a fairly consistent theme.
In the rejection letter from the media watchdog organization, I was told that they “needed someone with more traditional journalism experience”. I can see why they say that. They are a fairly traditional watchdog organization. It is important to them that their watching of the media does not create any substantial disruption of the media landscape.
The rejection letter from the DNCC didn’t give any reasons other than that “Several hundred great blogs submitted applications.” It suggested that I check out “The Big Tent” organized by “DailyKos, ProgressNow, the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, and the Wright Group… with some of the most well known faces in the non-profit and political world, as well as food, drinks, entertainment.” I’m not sure that well known faces and entertainment being gatekept by people making their name by writing about crashing gates is going to bring about any substantial disruption.
In 2004, bloggers at the Democratic National Convention in Boston were a substantial disruption, at least to the media narrative. People wanted to talk with and about bloggers about how they were changing the media landscape. Subsequent research found that the bloggers, myself included, didn’t really bring about any substantial disruption in the media landscape, but at least coming into the convention there was a foreseeable risk that that might occur.
Many great blogs have been credentialed this year and the Democrats have chosen to have a blog credentialed to sit with each State delegation. This could bring a whole new perspective on the convention, creating a new foreseeable risk of substantial disruption, but I worry that it may not. It may be just part of the new generation of political media, the new boys on the bus.
I’ve often commented about blogs being passé. They are so 2004. “New Media” is being replaced by “Social Media” and I wonder how much the bloggers of 2008 will have moved beyond 2004 style blogging. What role will streaming multimedia, microblogging and lifestreams fit into the picture? That may be where the real potential for a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption of the political media process exists this time.
All of this takes me to the Doninger case. The Second Circuit wrote that “Because Avery’s blog post created a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption at LMHS, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion. We therefore affirm the denial of Doninger’s preliminary injunction motion.”
The substantial disruption that Avery’s words in the blog post are accused of creating a foreseeable risk of, is citizens in the school district getting more involved the school and thereby in the community.
I disagree with the court that this sort of ‘substantial disruption’ is something the existing political structure should be protected against. Instead, the ability to create this sort of ‘substantial disruption’ is exactly what our Constitution is supposed to be protecting the right of each of us to participate in.
The candidate at the Democratic National Convention most likely to become the Democratic Party Nominee for President is running on the slogan “Change We Can Believe In”. We are most likely to see a candidate at the podium who says, “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
This candidate has brought many new people into involvement with the political process, similar to how Avery worked to get more people involved in the politics surrounding her high school.
So, I am frustrated. Unlike Barack Obama or Avery Doninger, I am not managing to generate a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption to current media and political status quo. Yet looking at the successes of Barack Obama and Avery Doninger, I continue to have hope that I may yet contribute to such substantial disruptions.
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#cfp08 Pregame
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 05/19/2008 - 21:45Tomorrow marks the opening of Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2008. This is an annual conference that has been held since 1991. This year, it will be in New Haven, CT, which makes it very convenient for me to attend.
As with most conferences, I like to read the program ahead of time to try and decide which sessions I’ll try to attend. Often it is hard to choose with many panels happening at the same time. Frequently, I make last minute choices as I wish from one hour long panel to the next. I may run into this later in the week, but the first decisions seem pretty straight forward to me.
Tuesday starts off with a choice between Scott Spetka leading a workshop entitled “Maintaining Privacy While Accessing On-line Information”, and Mike Godwin leading a workshop entitled “Constitutional Law in Cyberspace”. Through my coverage of the Avery Doninger case, I’ve been steeped in constitutional law around freedom of speech issues, at least as it applies to students in public high schools in the United States. Mike Godwin is general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation. The workshop should cover a much great array of topics than just the freedom of speech issues I’ve been following. Fortunately, it is three hours long. Even that amount of time will probably only allow the surface to be scratched.
The afternoon provides a choice between Robert Ellis Smith’s presentation, “A Short History of Privacy” and panel organized by Lillie Coney, Associate Director with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and moderated by Tova Wang, Vice President of Research at Common Cause about entitled, “e-Deceptive Campaign Practices: Elections 2.0”. Both presentations sound very interesting. Yet by the sounds of it Robert Ellis Smith’s presentation will be based substantially on his book “Ben Franklin’s Web Site”. It sounds like a great book, and I’ll put it on my reading list. However, I think I’ll attend the campaign practices session. I should probably say hello to Tova, since my wife now works for Common Cause. Also, the panel has a bunch of interesting folks. It should be fun.
Wednesday morning start off with “Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive”. It will be co-moderated by Ari Schwartz, Vice President, Center for Democracy and Technology and Susan Crawford, Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School. The panel will include Douglas Holtz-Eakin who is Senior Domestic Policy Advisor for the McCain '08 Campaign and Daniel Weitzner who is a member of the Technology Media and Telecommunications policy committee advising the Obama '08 Campaign. I hope the discussion will be lively and fear that the two hours allotted for it may not be enough.
Wednesday afternoon starts the more traditional conference fair with concurrent ninety minute long sessions. I’ll probably start picking which of those sessions to attend sometime around lunch on Wednesday.
So, I hope I have the stamina to attend and write coherently about what looks like a fun conference.
Tax Day Odds and Ends
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/15/2008 - 13:47It’s been around two weeks, a fairly chaotic two weeks, but I’ve caught back up on my emails. At least, I’ve gotten down to no unread emails in my inbox. There are still plenty of emails that are flagged for follow-up. So, this post will highlight some of the things I’ve been reading.
On areas is on telecommunications. A few weeks ago was Freedom to Connect. This is an annual event organized by David Isen. I made it one year and try to participate as much as possible via chats and video feeds on other years. This year, I did tune in long enough to hear Dewayne Hendricks talking about Net Neutrality issues. He says that the battle for Net Neutrality was lost years ago, and urges people to pay close attention to what the IP Sphere Forum is up to.
Yet the battles for better internet access continues, and there are two articles that I recently read about these battles in Connecticut. Esme Vos has an article about an RFI issued by Manchester, CT about installing city wide wireless access. Speed Matters has an article abilt HB 5682, "An Act Concerning High Speed Broadband Access", submitted by Rep. Roberta Willis to foster the build-out of high speed Internet access for Connecticut's underserved communities and allow local residents to fully take part in the digital age..
This fits nicely with a recent discussion about digital divide issues that has emerged on the Second Life Educators mailing list. For more on that, check out Stan Trevena’s blog post.
One mailing list that I’m following is talking a bit about how to deal with crime, and I pointed everyone to a great paper published by Harvard's Center on the Developing Child entitled, A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy. I would encourage people to read this.
In other topics, it was recently reported that employees from the “Dr. Phil” TV show posted bail for Mercades Nichols. Mercades is one of the girls involved in the Victoria Lindsey beating. My blog post about the beating continues to get lots of hits each day. In a follow up post, I suggested that these girls need serious psychological help. However, I am not sure that Dr. Phil counts, and based on the photographs in this article about the bail hearing, I’m not sure that Dr. Phil chose the right person to work with. I may be reading more into the pictures than is reasonable, but Mercades looks to me like the ringleader trying to finagle something good out of this for herself. I was also struck by the looks of defiance by April Cooper and Cara Murphy. No, if I were reaching out, I’d probably start with Britney Mayes or perhaps Brittini Hardcastle who seem the ones closest to remorse, based on the pictures in the article.
Then, tomorrow, we remember the shooting at Virginia Tech. Friends in Second Life will stop by at the Memorial Park. In Stamford, Protest Easy Guns if organizing a “Lie In” at 11 AM at Stamford Superior Court, on 123 Hoyt Street. The goal of the Lie-In is “To Urge Congress to Close The Gun Show Loophole And For More Common Sense Federal and State Gun Laws”. Other events are noted at http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/
All of this feeds into my mind as I prepare to speak Thursday evening at a talk about the Avery Doninger case, “Fighting to be heard”. The topic is how Avery’s case “informs our thinking about the types of experiences students face in high school and what they bring to community college.” I suspect that not only Avery’s case, but Tori’s case, the fight for better internet access, for safer schools, and even the issues of early childhood education should all fit into our thinking about “the types of experiences students face in high school and what they bring to community college”.
Victoria Lindsey, Erin Markes and Avery Doninger
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 13:11Three teenage women provide very different insights into the use of the Internet by today’s youth.
Yesterday, Erin Markes, 19, appeared in court in a child dependency hearing to find out if she would get her four year old son, who suffers from lissencephaly back from the state. She entered a formal denial of her child neglect charges at the hearing and another hearing is scheduled for May 5. Ms. Markes is also scheduled to be arraigned on charges of child neglect on April 16th. Led by members of the Lissencephaly Network, there is a petition to Exonerate Erin and Give her child back.
While others have been using the Internet to plead Erin’s case, Dianne Fitzgerald, president of the Lissencephaly Network, and the person who started the petition reported that Erin had made use of the networks online forum to seek help in how to care for her child.
The second young woman I would like to highlight is Avery Doninger. I’ve written a lot about her case. She is the student that referred to ‘the douchebags at the central office’, was banned from the ballot on a school election and now is awaiting a ruling by the Second Circuit on her case. While the word ‘douchebag’ may not have been the best word to use in the blog post, it was part of an effort, including a mass emailing, to get people more involved in the school district. The response by the administration seems to be more about trying to discourage student involvement that it is about choice of words.
This leads us to the third young woman online. Victoria Lindsey, according to some other girls was ‘talking trash’ online. She was severely beaten, with the beating being video taped and placed online. The girls doing the beating are now facing twenty years to life in prison. For details, see the blog post on ProgressiveU: Victoria Lindsey Beating and the commentary by Shelly Palmer on Jack Meyer’s site, What We Can Learn From Eight Florida Teens.
Each of these stories tells us a little bit about how the Internet can be used for good or ill and how people may respond appropriately or inappropriately to content online.
So, my thoughts go out to Erin, Avery and Tori as they all deal with their moments of fame, amplified by the Internet.
