freedom inof speech a
A
digital age StuCo raises ire after blocking students
s her friends began finding out they were blocked from the @free_state_stuco Instagram account, senior Amelia Lang realized she was also banned from the account. Lang was “frustrated” because she had never interacted with the account. “I didn’t really see what I’ve done to deserve such a thing,” Lang said. Months before this discovery, Lang and at least one other student expressed their disappointment online after Student Council posted a picture of several members violating social distancing guidelines in the school building on Nov. 17. As a result, StuCo sponsor Katy Hayden asked Lang and another student to meet with her. “So, she was just pretty dismissive of our concerns,” Lang said. “And then, eventually, she kind of just ended the conversation by telling us that we have, like, killed StuCo’s joy for this thing that they were doing.” Others were also blocked for critiquing the organization. In a video produced for the delayed Homecoming assembly, Hayden was shown pushing students away with meter sticks in a skit imagining what a socially-distanced school dance would look like. It also imagined choir as a cult-like organization, with members standing in a circle and chanting “down with LHS” at a rehearsal. One student, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of harassment, said watching the skit as a choir member was “heartbreaking.” She sent an email to Principal Myron Graber, assistant principal and activities director Matt Renk and Hayden explaining her grievances. Weeks later, she realized she was also blocked from the account. “Either my private email to Ms. Hayden was shared and then one of the students blocked me, or Ms. Hayden blocked me herself after I sent this email,” the student said. “I had not posted or liked anything relating to StuCo’s poor decision making on my Instagram.” Senior Lindsey Hefty also sent an email with
14
her concerns over the video as a choir member. After finding out she was blocked from the account, Hefty reasoned it must have been because of the email. “At least, that’s what [my friends and I] thought initially,” Hefty said. “We were like ‘okay so, like, we’ve called out StuCo for doing things before, that must be why we were blocked on Instagram.’” However, after talking with StuCo publications officer Ruthie Mutuku, Hefty found out she was blocked after liking a post that said ”#AbolishStuCo.” In April, Prom court candidates were announced through a post on StuCo’s Instagram account. Senior Drew Raney and a recent alumnus both commented, “Okay, but how many of these people are blocked?” on the post. Both comments were then taken down and the post was removed and reuploaded with commenting disabled. The next day, Hayden emailed Raney, Hefty, Lang and three others saying she “couldn’t discuss all of the specifics of blocking users,” but “using profanity, sending hate messages and liking or associating yourself with any of these messages” is a violation of the student handbook. Raney replied asking for examples of what comments Hayden deemed hateful. She responded with “No. Sent from my iPhone.” “My jaw hit the floor,” Raney said. “I think some students thought, ‘Oh, it’s our right to be on your Instagram,’” Hayden said. “It’s not. It’s not a right. It’s a privilege.” However, Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel of the Student Press Law Center, said this situation might have been a violation of the First Amendment. “[If the district is] giving public money to the student government and they are the body charged with distributing that money, yeah, that’s kind of what courts have looked at at the college level to say that ‘yes,’ college student governments can be considered public officials,” Hiestand said. While he had never heard of this happening on a high school level, Heistand cited a 2017 court case that decided social media accounts of public officials
