[nieve]

If I understand the article correctly they didn't even have evidence his credentials were used. All they had was a shared IP address. Given that his teachers testified in his favor I have to wonder if there was some specific grudge against the kid. Alternatively they were incompetent about the IP thing from the beginning and as soon as they realized they might be wrong went into full cover-up & deny everything mode.

[cdsmith]

Keep in mind that this article was written by a reporter who was unable to talk to the district, and got all their information from a lawyer representing the kid who was suspended. The district itself is prohibited from releasing any information about the case by privacy laws, no matter what the family says or how accurate it is. The same evidence was presented to the school board in an appeal hearing, and they (granted, probably not technical people) did not find it convincing. That doesn't mean the family's lawyer is wrong, but it is worth keeping in mind as you evaluate this. We don't have the whole story here.

[michaelmrose]

It's extremely likely that nobody wants to rock the boat and give an injured party evidence to be used against their employer. Their employer would almost certainly prefer to wrongly punish a student if it has a fraction of a chance at getting them out of a lawsuit.

It's also likely that there isn't a single person in a leadership position with the entire school board who is even slightly technically competent.

Next we already have precedent that IP addresses don't uniquely identify people for the purposes of law. It is incredibly likely that such an action wouldn't pass the sniff test if the IP addresses given were entirely correct.

Lastly even if he actually did try to log in with "i will murder u all of u" no reasonable person would consider this an actual threat without talking with the student. Kids are stupid, and kids say stupid things. Time and again schools fail to address the real problem children before things blow up and then use their persistent failures to justify overreaction to the detriment of students.

[TomSwirly]

Precisely! Even if he did it, for which there's no proof and plenty of counter-evidence, he doesn't deserve to not get an education.

[whimsicalism]

Wow, if only you all saw what regularly occurs in inner-city public schools.

Suspensions like these are common, especially among black boys. I saw all sorts of overly punitive nonsense, not to mention that we had to queue up for an xray + metal detector every day we went to school. Really, really felt like you weren't treated with a shred of dignity.

[TomSwirly]

God, I'm sick of that comment. Far too many institutional wrongdoers hide behind "privacy laws".

If the school board knew that it had incriminating information, it could ask the family to waive its privacy rights, and then if that didn't happen, explain that, without violating any law.

The school admits to punishing this kid based primarily on his IP address. We all know this is utterly worthless. The technical details make it even clearer that this is unreliable.

Also, the teachers uniformly spoke of the kid as quiet, respectful, and studious. This should be worth far more than an IP address. It's not, because administrators consider the opinions of their own teachers to have no value.

AND, let me be blunt here!, even if the kid did do it, which I think highly unlikely, this is NOT an excuse to deprive him of an education!

---

For whatever reason, many people have this fetish for authority, even when that authority through their own words shows their unreliability.

I also think a lot of people respond positively to stories about cruelty and punishment.

[LorenPechtel]

I strongly suspect it was an ignorant IT person coupled with an administration determined to blame somebody. He just had the misfortune to be the first student that came up when looking for someone with that IP.