EOL 469: Legal Basis of Educational Practice

David M. Stone, University Laboratory High School, Urbana, IL USA

Hypothetical

An art instructor at a local high school decides to have an art exhibit featuring the art collections of her senior 12th grade class. She decides to announce the exhibit via the internet and posts examples of several students' work. The exhibit is entitled "First Moments" and features several students' work as examples. Such students' artistic expressions include a depiction of parents walking their child to school and entitled "First Day", a marriage ceremony entitled "Love at First Sight", etc. One students' art work depicts a graphical illustration of a woman giving birth while her husband is in a frantic state. This students' art piece is entitled "First Born". After being informed that students' work will be "advertised" on the internet, a parent accesses the school's website and discovers the "First Born" picture. The parent files suit against the district maintaining that the art piece is obscene and offensive, and violates the Communications Decency Act. What result? Make explicit any assumptions of fact critical to your analysis.

Analysis

First, let's take a look at where the wording of the Communications Decency Act may allow grounds for a lawsuit.There is clearly knowing transmission of the image to recipients under 18 years of age (because the site is on a school server), and it appears that the image would depict sexual organs in some fashion. Less clear is the classification of the work as "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards." Since community is not defined, it could be interpreted as narrowly as school staff and students or as broadly as the WWW community. Legally the phrase "patently offensive" is unclear and meaningless. Is the work obscene and offensive? Well, it's clearly offensive to one member of the community.

What would be the result? I suspect that the first phone call to the administration would result in the picture disappearing from the web site. If the teacher has the type of maturity that teachers should possess, this will become a teachable moment and an opportunity to discuss laws as well as ethics with the kids, giving them a chance to discuss their thoughts and understandings. I've seen teachers make this type of thing a cause. This one isn't isn't worth it. As teachers, all of us have times when you have to put your career (and for those of us in nontenured positions, your current job) on the line to do what is right and in the best interests of one or more of your students. This is little. Let it go. Back down. The sun will rise tomorrow and you'll be back in the classroom doing what's important. The offended party may continue to grumble for a short time, but like most bad situations, it will eventually go away. It is essential that throughout the situation you act as an adult and model those behaviors for your kids. They do watch how we respond to difficult situations and they are influenced by us in many ways that go well beyond the teaching of our subject areas. That's what is important.

Created 9/24/99. Last modified 9/24/99.