Buuuutt… There’s actually no law against being a douchebro (unfortunately).
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That would be slander, not libel. Libel deals specifically with published material.
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I’m not against young teachers, but sometimes having other real world experiences can open minds to dealing with difficult people/situations. I’ve seen some young ones (< 30) hyper-focus on teenage behavior and dwell on how their own behavior was somehow stellar during high school. I know mine was average. I always tell students that’s it’s their job description to try to get away with as much as they can and it’s my job description to impede this (along with teaching them). That’s why I never take anything personal. I feel that they appreciate the candor and I genuinely have little to no behavior issues.
I do agree about what someone up-thread wrote, which had to do with sexual harassment. I’ve had a male student mutter something about me needing to get laid, which did not land him in trouble. All I know is that there is no way a male teacher would ever have to deal with this shit. (I thought it was very odd that he would say this to a married woman, but maybe he believes the hype that married couples don’t have sex? 
)
Edited to add that it was you! You were the one that pointed out that she was the one who was victimized, which I agree.
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How tweeting relates to “publishing” in legal terms might still be a moving target. If one party wrote it somewhere, and another read it elsewhere through some medium, it could still be considered publishing. I should probably update myself on this.
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The teacher is the victim and the student(s) are the criminals here. It is not OK to make career-threatening allegations on social media with impunity.
Is it illegal? I don’t know.
But leaping to the kid’s defense is to support bullying, trolling and douchebaggery, if not slander itself.
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This is material published online.
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unless she DID kiss the student.
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Some of the teachers and nearly all of the principals have that problem, too. As someone who was recently in high school, that’s a good chunk of why I didn’t respect a lot of them.
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With impunity? Check your rhetoric, noone is going down that route. Proportionally is the question.
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I was referring to the comment “Police Chief called him a felon? That’s libel.”
The post used “called” as if it were verbalized. The fact someone printed his comments is irrelevant.
If the police chief wrote this on the police HQ website, then it would be libel.
Yes, you should. Once it’s posted (and someone grabs a screen shot), it could be libelous. Doesn’t matter if it is a “moving” target.
Again, parents really ought to keep track of the shenanigans of their children.
Well, at least one person thinks it is used far too much:
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What do you mean it “doesn’t matter”? What the laws actually are has a huge bearing on what libel means, and when the laws are in flux, it takes effort to keep up with the changes. If the laws are different - or even just interpreted differently - than when I last read them, and they might well be, then I would say that it matters.
But even when they have been unchanged for years, most people still don’t ever read them.
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Being quoted on the record speaking to a journalist may certainly be relevant.
I’m not going to educate you on media law.
However, my initial post had to do with how the sentence was phrased. The post used “stated” and that’s slander. I did mention that if the Police Chief personally wrote, tweeted, posted online (on his personal Facebook page or personal website or personal Twitter account) then you’re getting into libel. Libel isn’t just reserved for online news agencies any more. Moreover, the student isn’t a public figure, so the P.C. should choose his words category. On the other hand, if the student defamed the teacher online, that could be a whole other issue for the parents because the teacher isn’t a public figure as well.
Just because you can’t think of a current caselaw that deals with Twitter, it doesn’t mean that you’re safe in tweeting libelous comments.
If you want to argue that having an online presence in fact creates a public persona, then I think that will be the more interesting philosophical discussion.
Edited to add: Just because someone is ignorant of the laws doesn’t absolve them.
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It isn’t. If some a-hole defames someone and the press reports it, the initial a-hole is committing slander and the press is covering the act of defamation. Libel initially dealt with published (i.e., printed) material made by the publisher (i.e., newspapers, books, or magazines), which included both the author and the actual entity carrying the erroneous and damaging information. And it’s murkier when dealing with public persons.
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