Posted on 08/26/2011 9:54:37 AM PDT by fungoking
Lawyers for the Missouri State Teachers Association say they have a signed injunction from Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem stopping the Facebook law from going into effect.
The MSTA says they received the injunction just after 10 a.m. Friday.
In the ruling, Judge Beetem said that based on evidence, teachers in Missouri use social media as a primary form of communication.
He also said the law "clearly prohibits communication between family members and their teacher parents using these types of sites. The Court finds that the statute would have a chilling effect on speech."
The injunction lasts for 180 days.
"This gives everyone time to debate and discuss the issue to come to a proper resolution rather than rushing to piece together language that doesn't resolve the concerns of educators or allow time for teacher input," said MSTA Legal Counsel, Gail McCray.
The MSTA was seeking a stop to the law that prohibits students and teachers from having exclusive communciation on social networking.
Teachers who testified at the hearing said they need to be able to speak on a student's platform, which is Facebook and other social networking sites.
The law has been controversial, gaining the attention of national media sites. Many said they felt the law prohibited free speech and association, while supporters of the law said it was there to protect students.
Lawmakers and teachers have been meeting about the law. Teachers hoped to get the law on the special session agenda for changes.
(Excerpt) Read more at connectmidmissouri.com ...
I hate Social media. Facebook and Twitter are distractions that keep people ‘plugged into’ the grid 24/7 all from their cellphones. It’s almost a complete detachment from reality. People are less friendlier than they used to be, make less eye contact and are rude when they bump into your person and don’t watch their driving because they can’t get their eyes off their devices. Fools at work do this crap too. The ones that keep their cellphones on their person are the least productive. I don’t own a cellphone or a real facebook account. (I have a facebook account for forum commenting only and I use the moniker ‘Pinto Bean’, not my real name. Needless to say, I enjoy my independent existence and mind traditional communication methods more than adequate for my needs.
My husband is a teacher and the rule at his former school was no teacher could “friend” a current student of theirs (except of course if their kid happens to be a studen as well). He has lots of former High School students that he friends and this seems to be a good rule for any teacher without it having to be a “law”...Common sense should rule, but I guess our society has lost that! We used to be taught etiquette classes in 8th grade - perhaps that needs to be reinstituted for this generation and inclusive of the new “technology” etiquettes (like NO TEXTING WHILE DRIVING OR WHEN YOU ARE WITH SOMEONE ELSE!)
Good for Judge Beetem! He sounds pretty strict. Wonder what law firm he came from?
1. A teacher can’t ‘friend’ my kid on Facebook because that would be wrong.
2. But a teacher can take my underage daughter across state lines for an abortion without telling anyone else because that’s okay?"
The only thing "law" and "logic" have in common is the first letter of each word...
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