Cyberbullying and the First Amendment

Jane Doe

July 28, 2016

All papers should have an introductory paragraph that provides background on the subject you are going to write about in the paper. I recommend finding a current event, perhaps an article where a student committed suicide after having been the target of cyberbullying. A good approach follows this line: Tell them what you are going to tell them (introduction), Tell them (body of paper), and Tell them what you told them (Conclusion). The introduction must contain a thesis statement previewing the paper. An examination of Minford School District’s school board policy as well as the faculty and student handbooks in addition to the relevant sections of the Ohio Revised Code followed by a review of the First Amendment arguments the student who is charged with cyberbullying might make, and the First Amendment responses based on case law the school district could argue, will provide insight into the issue of cyberbullying. (This is just an example off the top of my head). (Another approach for the purpose statement could be: Having been notified that a student in your class has been subjected to bullying through another classmate's Facebook page, a discussion of steps required by (enter your state's name)"s statutes, (enter your school district's name)'s school board policies as well as the student handbook, will provide a basis for examining any First Amendment arguments that the bullying has raised, and a discussion of the school district’s First Amendment argumentative responses consistent with the cases in the assigned readings.)

State Statutes and District Policies on Cyberbullying

Paragraph one should explain how the school district policy that you are examining addresses cyberbullying. You should examine the district’s policy, the faculty handbook, and the student handbook. Make sure that you are correctly providing in-text citations to these sources.

In a separate paragraph, you should examine your state’s laws on cyberbullying. (We looked these up in one of the DQs this week). The question you should answer after reviewing each of the above are what steps that a faculty member should take based on the laws and policies examined. Another issue to examine might be if the policy differentiates between cyberbullying that occurs out of school and cyberbullying that occurs during school. Remember to refer back to the facts of the specific scenario as you examine each of these laws or policies. Citations to sources should be used throughout the paper. Transition sentence into the next section of the paper goes here. Examples: Having examined the Minford Local School District’s policy, the faculty handbook, the student handbook, and the Ohio Revised Code, this paper will now look at the First Amendment arguments the student who is charged with cyberbullying might make.

First Amendment Arguments of Student Charged With Cyberbullying

This section should discuss specifically the First Amendment arguments that the student who committed the alleged cyberbullying could make. See DQ threads for a couple of research articles to use as the basis for your own research. Questions you should answer would be are there Supreme Court cases or state cases that address the issue of cyberbullying. Another issue to examine might be any current event articles that examine the issue of cyberbullying. For instance, there are cases that have dealt with cyberbullying at the state level after students committed suicide as a result of being targeted by another student. Citations to sources should be used throughout the paper. Case law should be used to support your position. Transition sentence into the next section of the paper goes here. (See example under previous section).

School District’s First Amendment Responses

This section should examine First Amendment arguments that have been made in cases involving cyberbullying. Typically, the school board will be the defendant in these cases, but there are cases where criminal charges were filed against the alleged student committing cyberbullying. You will want to argue only the school board’s responses in this section. Transition sentence into the next section of the paper goes here. (See example under first section of outline).

Conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize the main points of the paper. The conclusion should never add new material to the paper. The conclusion should be the “Tell them what you told them” section of the paper. I typically use my thesis statement as my guide to what I need to include in my conclusion.

References

I have included a variety of sample references to help you with your formatting. These do not apply to the paper, but are simply examples.

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Aud, S.; Hussar, W.; Planty, M.; Snyder, T.; Bianco, K.; Fox, M.; Frohlich, L.; Kemp, J.; Drake, L. (2010). The condition of education 2010. National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences. Washington, DC: United States Department of Education.

Babbie, E. (2013). The practice of social research (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Bandell, B. (2014, October 2). Owner of for-profit college arrested for theft of federal aid. Retrieved from South Florida Business Journal:

Chase, T. (2010). A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Economic Development Journal, 9(3), 27-35.

Clark, J. B. (2011, May). The real deal on for-profit colleges. Kiplinger's Personal Finance, pp. 64-68.

Creswell, J. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Creswell, J. W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Horne v. Flores, 129 S. Ct. 2579 (2009)

Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974).

Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).