Getting reprimanded by the school for something you say on social media is stupid, because it’s really not hard for people who have an issue with it to either: (1) report it as a violation of the platform’s TOS, or (2) block you. There is a pretty robust system of checks and balances already in place for that speech.
However, I think it’s totally fair game to reprimand someone for being a terrible person as EVIDENCED on social media (like saying they are poorly representing the school or team or club or whatever).
Dealing with this right now and hoo boy I couldn't disagree with you anymore. My 6th grader was minding her own business and was added to a Snapchat group with other 6th graders. In that chat there was one lil' white supremacist who said "eff the Jews." This turned into another kid who said "eff the fruit loops" and "eff the skittles squad" referring to those who identify as lgtbq and their allies. Then this turned into several kids talking about how much they hate gay people. The junior klansman who said eff the jews also said he wished someone killed all of the fruit loops. Then one little girl took a screenshot of a boy in the class who PMed her and asked her for a picture of her. The boy is definitely slow but I don't know what if any diagnosis he has. Then two different kids in the chat called him either Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!) or rough ridin' Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!).
Other than posting the screenshot I don't know if any of that is a violation of the Snapchat TOS, you could make an argument for any of it but none of it is clear. I asked my daughter what she wanted us to do and she did want us to report it, so we took photos of the chat, screenshotting Snapchat would have doxxed her, although I'm certain they're going to know it's her given she's one of like three of the so called skittles squad in her grade.
I know the "but my rights" crew runs deep here but the school has to do something, because it isn't like that behavior is just contained to social media and nowhere else. The next day one of the boys called her skittles squad to her face, after what happened in Snapchat the night before. Now without the context of what happened before you are taking a clear case of targeted harassment and not doing anything about it because "muh freedoms."
It's really easy to take a first amendment over everything stance when you are looking at these things like hypotheticals and not like real actual situations with real people who are effected by the behavior. Humanely speaking and practically speaking erring on the side of protecting your students who need to be protected is always the right thing to do. Making the decision to take action not only protects your students, but it's the most likely path to keeping your job, and potentially keeping your school or district out of the news cycle because you decided to protect the completely unestablished right of an adolescent to walk the line between harassment and protected expression.
There are much more clear, safe, practical, and humanizing ways to protect the first amendment that, like the second amendment gets used as a shield far too often, frequently by people with nefarious intent.
In general I empathize with all of that, I don't in particular have an issue with reprimands, and of course your example shows it can happen both in person and online, and that really is the muddling issue IMO with needing the school to reprimand. If the school chooses to of course, but I also feel if it's off campus it's a hard thing and an appeal to authority to go to the school. The kicker being with so many kids "at home" and connected where does school end and being? It's all so very entangled. In a perfect world in my mind things that don't happen during school time between two individuals not on campus is not the schools business, how can the school essentially control the behavior of pupils in a setting it doesn't control, and then be on the hook to pass punishment on it? It just seems like a tough sled.
It's like to me, if it happens "in school" then the school can easy deal with it, if it involves an employee of the school, in or out of school, clearly they can deal with it, two classmates doing something after hours not in school, ehh, what can they do? I feel if as a parent you notice this you have the right to go to the school, explain the situation, and then be like a mediator between your daughter and this kid, and if the kid's parents need to be involved so be it, but I guess my thing is, what do you want the school to do? Hey, on this app we don't own you're telling one of your classmates after school she's a so and so and that's not cool so 2 weeks detention? It's not so much free speech or consequence free speech but for (at least part of this story) what business does the school have on some of these things? If it happened literally in class then of course, do what needs to be done.
What I really wish would happen and this is more back to that Jadyn McPherson or w/e shithead at k-state would do is essentially instead of punishing, or expelling or removing the problem, you are an institution of learning, put the kid through some education, teach them why it's bad, something like that, just straight punishing people rarely actually teaches a lesson except "don't get caught" doing what is wrong. Instill
why it is.