ACLU, student and school district settle lawsuit over Facebook incident
The Minnewaska school district in central Minnesota has settled a lawsuit filed by attorneys for a student that school officials disciplined for comments she made on Facebook.
Riley Stratton, 15, will share the $70,000 payment with her attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union.
In 2012, Stratton posted on Facebook that she hated a hall monitor. She faced an in-school suspension and was asked to hand over her password so school and law enforcement officials could investigate another online conversation she had with a student.
• Previously: Student's Facebook incident could help form schools' guidelines
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School officials maintain they had permission from Stratton's parents to access her account. But Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, said school officials violated her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
"You have a 12-year old kid, and you've got two adults in a small room — she's locked in there," Samuelson said. "Seriously? That's wrong."
District officials say they have added student electronic communications and records to the list of items administrators can't search without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
Samuelson said he hopes the case changes how school districts respond to such incidents.
"What students do in their private home on their computers is by and large free from interference with the school," he said.