 
CCLA REBUKES “CYBER BULLYING” BILL
Appearing before the Ontario legislature’s Standing Committee on General Government, CCLA’s Freedom of Expression Director, Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, tore into the government’s Bill 212 dealing with “cyber bullying”. The Bill was introduced into the legislature after an incident in which more than a dozen students were suspended for comments on the website Facebook that were allegedly mean, derogatory, or critical of a particular principal and a policy he had just promulgated. The suspended students included one young woman who had written on-line that, while she opposed the principal’s policy, she also opposed the idea of a student riot. Mendelsohn Aviv attacked the provision that would authorize the suspension of students for “bullying”, when there is no definition for exactly what constitutes “bullying”. She also impugned the way the Bill would extend the authority of the school beyond school-related activities to any other circumstances “where engaging in the activity will have an impact on the school climate”. The CCLA free speech director argued that the Bill should protect student expression in general and, in particular, in those circumstances where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. As for off-school public or semi-public communications, she argued that there should be no question of discipline “unless, at the very least, the speech is unlawful, or unless the authorities in question are able to demonstrate that the expression significantly disrupts learning or school operations in a material or substantial way”. The Bill is currently being considered by the legislative committee. | CCLA In The Schools | Join Us | Feedback | Search | Other Interesting Sites | Home |
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