[rayiner]

> I think that the legal considerations here are a distraction.

To the extent that a teacher undertakes to teach something, he should do it correctly.

Remember the background context of this: there was notice and opt-out opportunities provided to parents in advance of the survey. The teacher then undertook to tell students that they had a right not to fill out the survey, not withstanding their exercise of the opt-out opportunity, as if it were a fact.

[mindcrime]

The teacher then undertook to tell students that they had a right not to fill out the survey, not withstanding their exercise of the opt-out opportunity, as if it were a fact.

It is a fact that they don't have to fill the survey out. Whether you want to use the 5th Amendment or something else as an argument to support that, is irrelevant. Bottom line, as a student, you absolutely have the right to wad the survey up, throw it in the trash and say "fuck this". Yes, you may get detention, or suspended from school, but no one has any authority to use force to compel you to fill out a frickin' survey.

What we need here, are more people who are willing to spit in the face of so-called "authority" and take back a little bit of their own power and sovereignty. Just because "they" told you to do something, does not mean you actually have to do it.

Edit: To elaborate more on this, per rayiner's comments, let me add this: I believe the bit about the teacher telling the kids they can skip the survey due to the 5th Amendment protection is approximately correct, given the context. That is, it's a potentially viable legal argument and certainly not something one can dismiss out of hand. Given that the class wasn't a law-school class, that level of approximation strikes me as totally reasonable.

The more interesting point, however, is that whether or not the 5A applies here is kind of irrelevant, since there's a bigger issue at stake. And that is what the 2nd paragraph above is getting at. Forget the Constitution, forget the Bill of Rights, forget the SCOTUS, etc.... none of those things grant us rights. Ultimately, we have the rights we are willing to demand, and willing and able to defend, and that's regardless of what some "authority" figure tries to sell us.

[rayiner]

So teaching misinformation is okay so long as it plays in to your angsty feelings about authority?

[mindcrime]

I'm sorry, what are you talking about?

[rayiner]

You implied it was okay for the teacher to talk out his ass about the 5th amendment because someone needs to tell kids to "spit in the face of authority."

[mindcrime]

Fact: There is a 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Fact: The kids have a right to not fill out the survey.

Debatable, but not a settled point either way: Whether or not the aforementioned 5th Amendment protection specifically applies in this situation.

As you can see from all the other discussion on this HN forum, whether or not the 5th Amendment comes into play here is subject to debate, and it's hardly an unreasonable position to take, to suggest that it does apply. Stating that is not even close to "disinformation" or "talking out of his ass".

It's also important to note that these kids weren't taking a class to prep for the bar exam, and you wouldn't expect the same level of precision regarding this topic, from this teacher, as you would from a class and a teacher focus on that topic specifically. To some extent, ALL middle-school teachers and high-school teachers, and some college professors, are "talking out their asses" when teaching about the Constitution, and history related to laws and legalities in this country... but we don't run around accusing them of spreading disinformation for teaching at the level of generalities.

So I am only implying that it's OK for the teacher to "talk out of his ass" to the extent that everybody talks out of their ass most of the time. So I guess I'd say you're being overly pedantic, IMO.

[dpark]

There was an opt-out notice sent via email to parents, at least several of whom claimed not to have received any such notice. The students were not given any opt-out opportunity.

> The teacher then undertook to tell students that they had a right not to fill out the survey, not withstanding their exercise of the opt-out opportunity, as if it were a fact.

It might come as a shock, but the students also have their own rights. Being a minor does not mean all of one's rights are subjugated to authority figures. Students do have 5th amendment rights.

[rayiner]

Students have rights, but it is well-settled that they do not have the same rights as adults. The Bill of Rights applies to schools, but cannot be applied wholesale to minors. There is an analysis where the rights are fitted in to the unique requirements of the school context. The only precedent I'm aware of in the context of the 5th amendment is J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011), which found that a uniformed police officer who questioned a student on school grounds about a robbery should have given the student a Miranda warning. It's a huge leap from that to conclude that school administrators can't ask about drug use on a survey in a non-custodial setting.

[dpark]

Minors have largely the same rights as adults. There are reasonable restrictions on those rights, but the default is not "no rights with a few exceptions". It's "all rights with a few exceptions". For example, schools are allowed to place some restrictions on students' speech, but they cannot forbid speech unreasonably (e.g. cannot require pledge of allegiance; could not force students to remove black armbands protesting Vietnam War).

And no one said the school can't ask about drug use. But the students can refuse to answer.

[jessaustin]

Do you claim that the students did not have "a right not to fill out the survey"? If that is your claim, could you elaborate on this novel theory?