Missouri Law Says Students, Teachers Can't Be Facebook Friends 415
An anonymous reader writes "Teachers can be friendly with their students, but they can't be their friends, at least when it comes to social networks such as Facebook. State Governor Jay Nixon has signed Senate Bill 54, which goes into effect on August 28, 2011 in the state of Missouri. In other words, later this month it will be illegal for students and teachers to be friends online."
Law not really needed, just common sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Senate Bill 54 is dubbed the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act. It is named after a Missouri public school student who was repeatedly molested by a teacher several decades ago.
Several decades ago? Yeah, definitely Facebook's fault! Let's make a law!
This is already policy in a lot of school districts, simply because there are too many potential problems that could arise between students and teachers becoming too "friendly." Even where it's not policy, I can't imagine why any teacher in their right mind would accept the risk of "friending" students online. I think it ought to remain a district-level thing, though.
The first amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
How in the world does a law forbidding teachers from being friends with students meet that criteria?
Sad new paranoid world (Score:5, Insightful)
I see everyone is in agreement with this.
It's a shame. When I was a teenager I was friends with one of my teachers. He took me under his wing, brought me to cool places that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. He became friends with my family. Never an inappropriate touch or word.
But everyone knows now that all men are child molesters, especially teachers.
Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri? (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, you did notice that they didn't ban brother and sister from being FB "friends" - what does that tell you?!
Cue "Dueling Banjos"
Horseshit (Score:5, Insightful)
And kind of creepy as well. I would be perfectly comfortable with a teacher being fired for friending his students on facebook.
Unbelievable. So, teachers are all potential pedophiles, eh?
In this day and age finding decent role models is near impossible. Politicians are all lying scumbags. Business leaders are cheating sons of bitches. Scientists are spineless cowards. And entertainers are just garbage.
There were actually a few teachers in my day who actually took the depressed, shy, abused, and withdrawn child that I was and inspired me to try to do better. Some of them were able to pull talents out of me that I didn't realize that I possessed. If I had more contact with them - on a professional and even friend level - I think that my life would be much much better.
Looking back from my middle aged wisdom, I can see teachers who were enthusiastic about teaching and their subjects - they loved children. The thought of them molesting or doing anything to harm a child (0-18 years old) doesn't even cross my mind.
I have known sleazy people who preyed on children - they did it in private and they were slick about it - they would never do it on Facebook - to great of a chance of being caught.
Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri? (Score:3, Insightful)
The wrong side if they rule the way you think they will. The problem is that if a student and teacher are friends on Facebook, that is largely out in the open. It's the email messages, the phone calls late at night, the notes passed during school, etc. that are going to be the problem—the stuff that's under the table.
It is just plain arbitrary to single out Facebook and other social networking services while ignoring other Internet services like email and instant messaging, other telecommunications services like phone calls and texting, etc. It's like saying that students are not allowed to call teachers on Friday night because they might be arranging a date, ignoring the fact that they could call on Thursday night and trivially get around the whole problem.
No, where this sort of law fails is in the equal protection clause. One communications service should be treated the same as another, and this fails to do so by not being nearly broad enough, and a law that is broad enough would be struck down as unreasonable restraint of speech.
Either way, this law is what happens when technologically ignorant government officials see something bad happening and instead of asking, "Could we have reasonably prevented this?" or "How can we teach people to be better at spotting abusers?" instead ask, "What law can we pass so that this very narrow, specific case can never happen again (unless someone who is already going to break the law decides to break a second law)?" And that, in a single sentence, sums up everything that is wrong with criminal law today.
Re:Wait, they have the internet in Missouri? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are far fewer child molesters in the world than the politicians want you to believe...