Valdosta State Case Gets More Attention

The thoroughly unconstitutional expulsion of T. Hayden Barnes from Valdosta State University — mainly for his postings on Facebook.com protesting against new parking facilities on campus — has been getting some new attention since Barnes filed a lawsuit against the university. The story was picked up by the Courthouse News Service and by WALB of Albany, GA, on Thursday, these blogs on Friday, and the Athens Banner-Herald on Saturday.

The story also saw more blog attention over the weekend, briefly on Slashdot and at length on Mashable by Paul Glazowski.

Glazowski writes:

Such stories of controversy involving social networking sites are abundant — and will only continue to grow in number. I simply found this particular dispute to be especially worthwhile to mention, as it involves the topics of online protest and free speech.

Glazowski’s point is particularly timely now that YouDiligence, a “social network monitoring service,” is on the market. But I want to remark on the comment posted after Glazowski’s article by Anthony Hayes:

This student of COURSE has the right as a U.S. citizen to say whatever he wants as long as he’s not inciting violence or similar.

However, he does not have the right as a student of an accredited institution of higher learning to say whatever he feels about a faculty member without expecting a consequence related to his status as a enrolled student in good standing.

Framing this as simply an issue of “free speech” without discussing the context of the mores and acceptable limits of societal behavior vs. those of a university campus is sophomoric, at best.

Hayes misses the point: Valdosta State is a public university. This means that Valdosta State is constitutionally barred from interfering with Barnes’s student status because of what Barnes says about a faculty member or even the president of the university. That’s Free Speech 101 — Hayes makes not a sophomoric but a freshman mistake.