Monday, June 6, 2011

Canadian government officials violate student's First Amendment rights

Oh, the humanity:

Jack Christie’s videos are the kind of thing you see every day on the Internet. Crudely animated stick figures swear and fire automatic rifles. There are off-colour jokes about everything from race to pedophilia to cocaine. Absurd incidents – such as the assassination of an evil talking mango – seem to happen at random.
But administrators at the Grade 12 student’s Whitby high school were so offended when they found the animations on YouTube last month, they sent him home and called the police. He is being kept out of school during the investigation.
They told me that if I voted for John McCain, government apparatchiks would punish citizens for double-plus ungood thought crime, and they were right!  And they're so tricky about it that it's up in Canada, no less!

And the school seems to take an expansive view of their power over their charges:
A spokeswoman for the Durham District School Board refused to discuss the case, citing confidentiality laws, but obliquely explained the school’s actions: “If something is considered detrimental to the positive moral tone of the school, it doesn’t necessarily have to happen inside the school [for us to get involved],” said Andrea Pidwerbecki.
What could possibly go wrong?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since when do Canadians have First Ammendment rights?

genedunn said...

It's actually section 2(b) of their "constitution". But I knew what you were getting at... Rock on, America, Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Canada

Sean D Sorrentino said...

I like step 2 in his platform for president. Invade Sweden.

Borepatch said...

Anonymous, you might also be able to make a 4th, 10th, or 14th Amendment case. But IANL, particularly of Canadian constitutional law.

ScottH said...

Ha! I've got a story for you about the mental quality of Canadian educators - TINS.

In high school my brother and a couple friends somehow managed to convince the principal to let them read stories narrated a la The Champ with the morning announcements; if you haven't heard of him go listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ItsMeTheChamp#p/c/F47A402798143132

we'll wait:

The kids mostly wrote their own Champ stories. One morning they did a story that took place on a hot day. Knuckles invited The Champ to slake his thirst from his water bottle ("Take a sip from my [ass]crack, Champ"). Pardon? I snap, lose it, etc...

An hour later they get called to the office and told they will no longer be allowed to do The Champ over the PA: one of the teachers got upset and complained about the reference to crack cocaine in the morning's story (huh?).

Man, what the system would do to them if it happened today.

Borepatch said...

ScottH, I'm shocked to find high school kids acting immature. Shocked.

Goober said...

Said Borepatch - "Anonymous, you might also be able to make a 4th, 10th, or 14th Amendment case. But IANL, particularly of Canadian constitutional law."

Uhhh, I think that Anonymous was trying to make the point that the United States Constitution does not apply to Canadian Citizens in Canada. The point also applies to the 4th, 10th, 14th, or any other amendment to the US constitution. As easy as it is to forget that Canada is not just another US State, they are actually a sovereign country with a completely separate set of laws. Their "1st amendment" isn't as absolute as ours is - they have hate speech and violent speech exceptions that would allow something like this to be questioned.

Aaron said...

Heck Canadians don't have our first amendment rights, their rights are far more fragile and not nearly as strong as ours.

After all, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (widely touted at the time of its adoption as the Canadian counterpart to the Bill of Rights) has a notwithstanding clause that aloows the provinces to overide core freedoms with a simple majority vote.

wv: xemant - stating Canadians have First Amendment rights was an exercise in xemantics...