The senior class president of Heights High School in Wichita was suspended for the rest of the school year after posting a bit of trash talk about the school football team on Twitter.
Tweets are electronic messages and are limited to 140 characters, which was apparently enough to get Wesley Teague in trouble with the jocks and administration. The Wichita Eagle reported that on May 2, Teague posted on his personal Twitter page: “‘Heights U’ is equivalent to WSU’s football team.” That led to threats of a fight, and administrators say the disturbance at school and online is the official reason for the suspension. Teague wasn’t the only one suspended, they add.
Initially, Teague wasn’t going to be allowed to attend the senior breakfast or convocation ceremony. But his parents got involved, and after a meeting it was agreed he can attend the events, as well as graduation. But his suspension stands, and although he was originally chosen by faculty to speak at the convocation, he won’t be speaking.
The school has a policy against online bullying or inciting a disturbance. But he didn’t single out an individual; he commented on the football team. Should he really not be allowed to voice an opinion to which someone might take offense? Would it have been OK to make a crack about the German Club or chess team, assuming its members and boosters might have reacted less aggressively?
For his part, Teague has backed off a bit from his original stance that he did nothing wrong. “I learned that words can hurt others and that there’s a time and a place for Twitter, and school’s not the time or place,” he told the Eagle. This is true.
Meanwhile on Twitter, one Teague supporter at #HeightsU posted, “Hey, if I make fun of Winnie the Pooh, even though he’s a fictional character, much like #HeightsU, will I get suspended?”
School administrators are struggling to deal with the effects of social media, and they deserve points for that. But perhaps the people who overreacted to the tweet were the problem.