If you're currently an adult, imagine being back in high school. Imagine sitting
in your calculus class; your teacher has finished the lecture, and you, along with the
rest of the class are impatiently waiting for the second period bell to ring. The door
creaks open and the Vice Principal steps in. With tight methodical precision he hands
your teacher a note and asks you to come with him. A curt "yes" is all you can utter
as you get up to follow him. You stare straight ahead with military obedience as you
walk behind the man who holds your future in his hands. He enters his sterile office
and you follow, closing the door behind him. "Sit down, " he commands.
You obey.
"Where were you during your flex block on December, 18, 2003?"
You know an interrogation has begun. "I was probably in the library, ummm media center,"
you blurt out, but you understand perfectly well that the school administration already
knows where you were, what you were doing, and probably even how your punishment
will play out. The questions continue; all of them are short and reveal as little
information as possible. You go on to describe how you spoke with another student in
the computer lab at that date. You explain the subject matter that you and he
discussed. The school administration has enough information now to prove your
guilt. You are handed a form detailing the incident that you had just spoken of. You
fill it out and give as much detail as you can, thinking that if you are frank and honest
with the administration, you will get some level of respect in return. The pattern of
questioning, documenting, and signing, repeats for another few hours.
This was the situation I found myself in a few weeks ago at my ex-school, Dundee
Crown. In the interrogation, I explained that at one point I had entered the file://
command into a web browser, and this violated an oral agreement I made with the Vice
Principal stating that I would not use a computer network while at school ( I had been
banned from the network because I'd downloaded an SSH client at the beginning of
the year. That was a violation of the network user agreement). I discussed 802.11x
networking in response to the school's confiscation of my keychain wifi scanner.
Typing a command into a computer when told not to and possessing an unauthorized
electronic device are minor infractions of the school rules. However, at the end of the
discussion the VP told me that I would be suspended for ten days. Ten days happens
to be the maximum suspension in my school district. Even if a student commits a
violent crime at school, 10 days suspension with a recommended expulsion will still
be the maximum punishment. I am also told that I will have the opportunity to speak
before the school board at a hearing dealing with my expulsion. The Vice Principal
goes on to say that the main issue is not that I had touched a computer when I had
promised not to, or that I had used a wifi detector. In fact no action would be taken
against me regarding those incidents. My real crime, according to the Vice Principle,
was what I had told the other student. Apparently I can be expelled from school for
speaking about certain things.
Up to this point, I hope anyone reading this will see the utter absurdity of this
whole situation. Public schools have become a holding pen for those too young to work.
Security cameras dot the halls, police officers prowl like hungry pigs, and the student
handbook bans such things as "unauthorized reading material." Personal and intellectual
freedoms are suppressed to an extent that the student body has for the most part
given in to either a drug induced apathy, or an artificial happy obedience.
Dundee crown has a web filter. I do not appreciate this. When I
had been talking with that student in flex block on 12-18-2003, I was trying to find
out what sites he could get to using a web proxy. The proxy was one I hosted at my
house and I intended to use it as a means of bypassing the school's filter. With all of
my school's clear problems, why did I focus on combating censorship of the Internet?
Probably because I saw freedom of information as the main source of social progress,
because essays from noted libertarians like Herbert Marcuse, Eric Raymond, and
Noam Chomsky were some of the material the school had been censoring, and I saw
real change potentially locked away in words the school library wouldn't stock.
The real question comes down to this. If I make a proxy on my own computer,
at my own home, outside of the schools jurisdiction, and if I use my free speech
rights to talk about that proxy with another student, can the school, interrogate,
suspend, and expel me? Censoring the web in a place of public education is wrong.
Expelling students who speak out is unconstitutional. Help! I have served the
suspension, and took part in an expulsion hearing where I was not even
told what specific violation of school policy I had made. Recently, I transfered
to a private school. I am expressing my views on this issue in the hopes that it
will bring up a discussion of the role of freedom of information for minors. Please
contact me at
[email protected] if you think your ideas will be of aid to me or the
students at my school district.
