(an exercise in resisting the hype)
Most people in the Philadelphia area are familiar with an incident which occurred
at my school last month. A student made some comments during a conversation with
another student during a real time conversation on America Online Instant Messenger
software. The student who made these comments was under the impression that the issue
would end there, but the other student decided to print out the conversation and show it
to some friends during a school sponsored basketball trip. He only intended to show the
conversation to some friends for comedic value, but a faculty chaperone somehow got
hold of it and turned it over to the school administration. They did not find it so funny,
and expelled the student.
The issue has caused a media uproar. This began with a radio call in show, and
quickly spread to all manner of local news shoes and news papers. The media hype
(largely orchestrated by the student’s lawyer) has been focusing on whether or not this is a
violation of the student’s civil rights. This is a valid issue (especially in this climate of
post-Columbine paranoia (I apologize for using such a cliched and meaningless phrase)),
but there is also other issues such as the student’s disciplinary record, and the fact that the
school did not obtain the document in an illegal way.
Despite these other factors, the heart of the issue is really the conversation. A
copy of the conversation was given to me by a friend of the expelled student, with the
intention that I would print it. Obviously there were many issues which I had to consider
before printing it, as are discussed in the conversation below between me (Ben, editor of
this zine), and my friend Jon (contributing writer to this zine, and the voice of reason).
This conversation took place using the same software as the conversation which led to the
expulsion, and was printed in the same simple way- though in this case I had Jon’s
permission.
the conversation between Jon and I
