students

Small-Town Librarian Takes On Sony–and Wins

By |2019-03-15T17:22:43-04:00November 28th, 2012|Blog|

Don’t mess with Abbe Klebanoff, the head of public services for Pennsylvania’s Lansdowne Public Library. She encouraged teens to create a music video called "Read It" to the music of Michael Jackson's song, "Beat It," and posted it on YouTube. What followed was predictable—Sony objected and took it down, claiming copyright infringement. The passionate Klebanoff, who spent weeks helping the teens [...]

Can They Do That? Saggy Pants Edition

By |2019-03-15T15:27:26-04:00April 1st, 2011|Blog|

Perhaps you heard that the Arkansas State Legislature has banned students from wearing "clothing that exposes underwear, buttocks, or the breast of a female" at all school-related functions. So: Can they do that? Fire up the Free Speech Wayback Machine to 1969. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court ruled that school authorities could not [...]

Moot Court Competition Examines Real Student Cyber-Speech Issues

By |2020-01-03T13:39:57-05:00February 22nd, 2011|Blog|

David Hudson of the First Amendment Center is connecting the dots between the hypothetical case presented in the 2011 First Amendment Moot Court Competition (in which the College Of William and Mary Law School emerged victorious -- Go Tribe!) and the questions of freedom and accountability surrounding online speech facing administrators and communities around the country: Many questions remain in [...]

Grendel kept in the curriculum

By |2020-01-02T15:32:52-05:00November 13th, 2008|Blog|

We were delighted to hear that the Sherwood, Oregon School Board voted last night to keep the novel, Grendel by John Gardner, in Sherwood High School’s 10th grade accelerated English curriculum.  Some parents object to sexual content and violence in the book, but their children were offered a different book to read.  Their views are not shared by all – [...]

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