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Playwickian.com

March 2001

Cyber-speech:Protected rights

The First Admendment protects the individual's freedom of speech, including the right to express yourself on the Internet.

Since the Internet is considerably new, there is a lot of uncharted ground pertaining to what is protected under free speech and what is not concerning the Web.

What students say on their own time cannot be regulated by the school. Furthermore, any personal web site that does not use school resources for it's operation or matnience also cannot be regulated by the school.
However, there are exceptions to this. The school can regulate material presented on the Internet if that material is deemed detrimental to an individual or the school at large.

Students should exercise caution when exercising their freedom of expression. The most valuable key a student has is common sense. If you are not sure if something could be deemed controversial or could face possible unwanted attention by the school, the best thing to do would be to not post it on the Internet.

The best way to avoid an unwanted altercation is to not have one in the first place.

Ron Dalton
Editorials Editor