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The Mong … in All Her Glory!
On May 4, Gregory Requa started a 40-day suspension. The senior had been suspended by Kentridge High School because of a YouTube video of one of his teachers. Said teacher, Joyce Mong, didn’t know students had snuck a video camera into her class. These students then surreptitiously filmed her, including stupid conversations between her and some students and some students fooling around behind her back. The video was then edited together and posted on YouTube, where she became known as Mongzilla.
Requa was ultimately suspended because of this video, even though he didn’t make it. Another student told the school that he made it, but claimed that Requa did participate (of course, this kid only ratted Requa out after the school put the hot light on him and said it would give him a less severe punishment). In any event, Requa took the school to court, arguing that this suspension is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
His lawyer, Jeannette Cohen, says that he can’t be held responsible for the video because he didn’t post it (he claims he simply linked to it from his MySpace page). But even if he did post it, she says it was criticizing Mong, and is therefore protected speech.
“What is at stake here is the school district message that if you post things we don’t like,” you will be punished, Cohen said.
The school district lawyer says that the suspension isn’t about the posting of the video. Rather, he claims that Requa was suspended because of the disruption in the actual classroom, a disruption caused by a video being snuck into the classroom and all the kids monkeying around. But he should be careful what he wishes for, because the judge has said that this means that Requa’s suspension can only hold up if it’s established that he was involved in the classroom portion of the shenanigans (as opposed to being involved in any production or posting of the video).
And of course, we have the video in question to share with you. But frankly, it’s quite lame (even by high school standards), although it’s got a pretty solid soundtrack:
Comments
Do you think this is similar to that other case where the students made a fake MySpace page for their teacher, and he sued for defamation or something like that? I never heard what became of that one, but superficially they seem similar.
Posted by Phaeolus | May 25, 2007 1:54 PM