Bethany Koval, a 16-year-old Israeli Jew, said on Wednesday that she was called to the principal's office at Fair Lawn High School and reprimanded for making tweets criticizing Israel and mentioning that a pro-Israel classmate had unfollowed her on Twitter.
Comment: So where's the real problem? It doesn't seem to exist. Maybe the school administrators need a refresher course in the 1st Amendment.
Administrators warned her that she could face legal consequences for her actions, since New Jersey has some of the strictest anti-bullying legislation in the country. Under the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, which only came into force in 2011, she could be suspended or expelled.
Koval is a prolific Twitter user. She had made over 21,000 tweets and has almost 7,000 followers, many of whom she gained in the last few days. The fiasco that she is the center of has since become a social media sensation.
The outspoken high schooler has been met with both support and opposition online.
When Koval was called down to the principal's office, she began documenting the situation on Twitter.
"I'm about to be exposed for being anti-Israel. Pray for me," she tweeted.
A few minutes later, she tweeted that the administrator threatened to "file a bullying case" against her.
"It's against state law to express unpopular political views on the Internet, now," she tweeted again.
In addition to rebuking her and warning her about legal consequences, the administator searched Koval's phone to make sure that he had not recorded their conversation. The student could be sued if she had, he told her.
The administrator was correct in their assumption; Koval posted videos of the meeting on Twitter. In one recording, Koval can heard telling the administrator that her tweets may have been controversial, but she didn't think they were "problematic."
"Well that's your interpretation," the administrator said. "There's a state law that might interpret it differently."
Comment: Ya maybe, except for that little nuisance known as the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution that guarantees the right of free speech for everyone in the USA.
In a second clip, the administrator can be heard warning her about legal consequences again.
"You can sit there with your smug attitude right now, but if it's got to go into a bullying case because you think it shouldn't be and the state says it is, you're going to lose," he said.
Fair Lawn High School Principal James Marcella told the New York Times that the issue has been referred to the school district's superintendent, Bruce Watson, and that a statement would be released on Thursday afternoon.
Stanley Cohen, a lawyer consulted by Koval's family, said he that doubted that the complaints over her tweets would end up being a legal matter. He said he hoped school officials would looking beyond "the emotion of the moment and say 'Move on, this is no big deal,'" adding that he believes that young people should be encouraged to express their opinions in an academic environment.
Reader Comments
"If you want to know who is your Lord and Master, who regards your creation by his Personal God as merely to be his lifelong servant and slave who may be bought and sold, and your children and descendants bought and sold as slaves and inherited as property just like a pig or a dog, who tells his fellows and is told by them that you are not even human but just a beast of burden for their pleasure and service, who intends to crush you and your children and grandchildren into the mud unto the seventh generation, and to destroy utterly all those who even feebly resist their Master Race overlordship.... then ask yourself who it is that you are not allowed to criticize."
Utterly ridiculous! Where's the law in all this? Does this girl have dual citizenship or is she simply an Israeli? And if she's a citizen of the foreign country that she's criticising, where does that leave American law? What next?! Arrests and executions if you criticise those in charge? As far as I'm aware that's already happening in some countries that America is allies with. I guess the girl can thank her lucky stars she's not a Palestinian or an Arab.
see what happens here? they create a law about a certain issue and then EVERYTHING falls into that category....the slippery slope rules in the USSA.
Where there's smoke there is fire?
Israel and Saudi Arabia did 9/11
Israeli secret service is identified in numerous false flags
Saudi Secret Service agent identified in the mist of Boston terror
The school administration is bullying this kid by threatening legal action.