A teacher in the Ladue School District near St. Louis filed a lawsuit in U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Friday challenging implementation of Sen. Jane Cunningham's Facebook Law.
The lawsuit, which lists the school district and members of the State Board of Education as defendants, was filed after school officials told Christina Thomas she could not communicate with her own child through social networking sites.
According to the petition, "Ladue School District has notified its teachers that they cannot have exclusive communications with their own children on Facebook, if they meet the statutory definition of student or former student. Specifically, Plaintiff and other teachers at Ladue School District were notified in writing that because of the statute they will be prohibited from communicating exclusively through Facebook or other social-networking sites with their own children or members of their Sunday School classes, athletic teams, or scout troops “unless or until exceptions are enacted[,]” if the children are students or former students as defined by the statute."
The lawsuit, which is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, says that SB 54 is "a prior restraint on speech in that it requires promulgation and enforcement of a policy that restricts the speech of Plaintiff and members of
the Plaintiff Class before the speech occurs."
The petition asks the judge to certify the lawsuit as a class action suit in which all Missouri school teachers would be members of the class and asks for preliminary and permanent injunctions against enforcement of the law.
I've been wondering about parent/child relationships that are also teacher/student. This just keeps getting more ridiculous, but maybe the lawsuit will draw attention to the flaws in the law.
ReplyDeleteWow. Who lets teachers have children? (kidding!)
ReplyDeleteAll joking aside - which is hard - aside from the obvious problems with the law, side-effects like this are just more evidence that it was poorly considered and poorly written.
The fact that this is even an issue shows just how screwed up the law was to begin with. These legislators need to get their heads out of their asses.
ReplyDelete