Free Speech at Villa

If I were in charge of my high school . . . hmmm. Well, I've been back to visit my high school a number of times since I graduated in 1987, and a lot of the changes I would have made *have* been made since then. They built that new fabulous arts center in the mid-nineties. It's central feature is a theater space and quite a lot of audience seating. I remember there were also music practice rooms, and places to do things like pottery and sculpture and painting. That was one not so great thing about Villa in the 70's and 80's. They didn't exactly have a wide variety of course offerings or extracurricular offerings. If you weren't a big sports fan, there wasn't a lot left over.

One of my friends from high school currently works at Villa as head of Information Systems. One of her jobs is to get on Facebook and make sure Villa girls aren't posting naked pictures. When she told me that it made me wonder about the rights of younger people in regards to technology. Where do the obligations of adults to protect young people in their care run into the free speech rights of young people? Does the Principal of Villa have the right to curtail free speech rights of the young people in her care just to protect the school's reputation? Well, probably, yes. It would constitute slander and slander is one of the limits of free speech.