Cyber+Bullying+Troubles+in+Indiana+MS

Last year we talked a lot about Internet Safety and a little about cyberbullying. Check out this article about how cyberbulling is affecting one middle school. Read the article posted below and respond to the quotes and/ or answer the questions at the end. Do you agree or not? Be sure to give value statements to your answers.

[|Cyber bullying troubles Indiana middle school] - article
=What are your thoughts on the following quotes from the article:=

"The students who were expelled were justly punished. They're creating a hostile learning environment for my daughter . . . why should these kids fear going to school?"

"There is a big difference between a threat that is intended to be taken literally and intended to terrorize somebody, and a joke, however vicious. The kind of nasty and stupid banter that teenage girls sometimes engage in, especially on Facebook."

"The school represents the government. Do we really want to say that when people are mean to each other it's the business of government to come in and punish them?"

"Free speech rights under the First Amendment, even when it's speech we don't like or agree with, must still be protected, and schools do not possess the infinite reach into the private lives of their students."

"When you are going as far as three pages of saying how you would like to kill somebody, how you would like to put paper towels around the handle of a box cutter as to not leave any fingerprints, how you would like to put someone in a bathtub of acid to get rid of evidence, to me, that's not typical banter between teenagers, that's demented."

1) Does the school have the right to punish the cyber bully for something done off school grounds? Is there a "only if . . " statement? Is expulsion too much? Which punishment would fit the crime?

2) Is there a fine line of what can or cannot be said online? How can you truly tell if people are joking?