Many members of the IHS community have seen social media posts that criticize and/or satirize members of IHS staff. But recently, the students responsible for these posts were reprimanded for the potential harm that their content could pose to the staff. This administrative crackdown was carried out by forcing students to take down their accounts and handing out referrals, leaving many in the student body to wonder whether such measures were appropriate, especially when many of the posts in question were clearly attempts at humor.
Due to the fact that the content was posted on private accounts, this administrative crackdown raises questions not only about the right for students to voice their opinions on the IHS administration but also about the administration’s authority outside of the school. In other words, should school authorities have been permitted to intervene on Instagram, a third-party social media site, especially when much of the posted content was on “private” accounts? While some of the content posted could be categorized as harassment, the boundaries which the school is free to monitor student behavior seems to have been breached; after all, there should be an outlet for students to publicly voice such opinions, preferably without intervention from the administration. This incident reflects a larger trend in which administrations of all levels—from local schools to federal governments—are forced to confront the issue of free expression in an era where social media is widely accepted as a method of communication.
In the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker vs. Des Moines, Mary Beth Tinker, a student in the Des Moines school district, protested the Vietnam War by wearing a black armband to school. When Tinker refused the district’s requests to remove the armband, she was met with a suspension, a decision that went on to be heavily contested. In their decision, the Supreme Court famously ruled that the right to freedom of speech and expression for students is not “shed at the schoolhouse gate.” However, the advent of widespread Internet communication has clearly introduced a gray area in their ruling, as schools struggle to draw the line between punishing those who make clearly hurtful comments and those who state uncomfortable opinions. The Internet’s wide reach and lack of privacy play a critical role in the revival of this issue, as content that may have been intended to be kept “private” can be accessed by nearly any individual with a click of a button. Regardless of the potential confusion the Internet brings, the Tinker vs. Des Moines ruling clearly states that controversial opinions should not be suppressed simply due to the unpleasant manner in which an administration may interpret them. Thus, it is reasonable to question whether IHS has overstepped its boundaries by punishing students for their comments online.
However, the adverse effects of online harassment on the real-world lives of individuals are undeniable. According to surveys conducted by Cox Communications, 68 percent of youth think that cyberbullying is a major problem among their generation, and 33 percent go even further to state that online harassment is worse than real-world bullying because online harassment often comes with less potential consequences. Also coupled with the fact that less than half of cyberbullying incidents have said to be reported, social media content posted with malicious intent has been proven to be truly harmful. With these possible negative outcomes, students should aim to be careful when incorporating social media into their lives. Even though negative statements about peers or teachers can be made without harsh intentions, they can seriously affect those targeted by such statements.
If offline, out-of-school conversations between friends began to be monitored for potentially damaging content, many would not tolerate administrative intervention. While private interactions on the internet are much more accessible to the public than private conversations in real life, the uncomfortable truth is that the online world is growing increasingly inseparable from our physical reality, creating the need for greater caution on social media. Although some of the viewpoints expressed by students are certain to be unpopular by an administration, the online activity of students should not be restricted. Therefore, while students should seek to create a healthy social media environment, perhaps the administration should look to uphold its values within its own boundaries, rather than attempt to monitor the online behavior of its students after the bell.