By Paul Northcott
Sean Tyson says his efforts to raise the spirits of students at St. Paul Catholic high school were crushed last year after he was suspended.
Tyson was shown the door in June by school officials who were angry with the content on his Web site and its message board.
“It’s not a great highlight of my high school career,” says the 19-year-old, who can now joke about an incident that attracted a lot of media attention and sparked debates about freedom of expression.
But school officials, who said the Web site contained disgusting content, had the site’s Internet service provider shut it down.
It was a move Tyson and his supporters opposed but, more than a year later, school principal Greg Mullen stands by the decision.
“Sean has his point of view. I disagree with it and so do many people in my community,” says Mullen.
“There were serious issues that could have been pursued and people chose not to do that.”
The Web site was called The Alternative Student Council (TASC) — a name originally attached to a newsletter that provided commentary about life at the Nepean high school. Tyson revived the newsletter that at one time had been produced by a fellow student.
We are doing this because we feel that there is a passive atmosphere amongst students when it comes to problems and issues within our school. This newsletter will give anyone the opportunity to voice their opinion on any school issue(s). Instead of listing our names, we (the editors) have decided to remain anonymous. This way, we can get more newsletters published before the administration tries to stop it.
TASC newsletter, April 2000
Tyson says St. Paul’s was being drained of its spirit after officials implemented unpopular policies such as a ban on wearing baseball caps, and the pudding drop — an event in which students climbed a ladder and tried to drop the gooey treat directly into another student’s wide-open mouth.
Tyson was also a member of the school’s student government that worked unsuccessfully, he says, to improve life at the school.
“Every idea we threw at them, they just said no. The new administration made rules that took out the school spirit,” says Tyson, during an interview from his new home on the campus of Simon Fraser University.
The Web site — which built on the newsletter’s mandate — was launched in April.
It included information that had been published in the newsletter. But the site also contained pictures of words like ‘conform’ and ‘thought police’ and a message board. It was the message board that proved to be its most controversial feature, because anyone could post anything they wanted to say on it.
“There was stuff like, ‘Mr. so and so is an a–hole,’ which I deleted from the message board, but they were still mad about (it),” says Tyson. The Internet message board received an average of 75 daily postings during its three-month lifespan.
Tyson tried to edit the message board for content, but the task proved difficult because of the large number of submissions. He says the site attracted more than 4,000 visitors.
It included a disclaimer stating the opinions on the message board weren’t necessarily those of the publisher and could be edited.
But it wasn’t enough to stop the provider, New York-based Dencity.com, from shutting it down.
Tyson was suspended for the last eight days of classes. But he was permitted to returned to write year-end exams.
Tyson, who is now studying business administration, maintains he didn’t do anything wrong.
Tyson says there are items produced on the Internet and in print that are far worse than his Alternative Student Council Web site.
Tyson says school officials tried to control people’s right to freedom of speech by shutting down the site. He concedes people have to be careful about the things they say, but says the situation should have been handled in a different manner.
“You know we’re students. (Teachers) have to help teach us
. . . not punish us,” he says. “Censoring stuff is not making thoughts go away. When you bring things into the open you begin to tell what’s wrong and what’s right.”
But because Tyson’s site dealt with issues specific to St. Paul’s, school officials wanted more control over it, he says.
“It was more of a power struggle between students and the administration. The administration was scared because they had no control over this,” says Tyson.
Please conform to the administration. And don’t go in the basement of the school, because that’s where you are allowed to think by yourself, and they don’t want that. I hope that the administration takes more privileges away from us without asking.
Anonymous TASC letter, publishedApril 2000
In the meantime, Mullen says St. Paul’s has moved on from the incident, and maintains high schools can be placed in precarious situations when incidents involving the school and its students become public.
“Personally I think school issues should be kept out of the press because I cannot release all the information to support what I do,” he says.
Mullen also says an appeal process exists for suspended students, but Tyson chose not to take advantage of the process.
“To me it says something when that (process) doesn’t happen.”
John Tyson, Sean’s father, says his son decided not to appeal because the suspension would not be documented on his Ontario Student Record.
Tony Pearson is president of the Ottawa Carleton Secondary School Teachers.
Although Pearson is not familiar with the details of Tyson’s case, he says publishers of Web sites have a responsibility for what is on their sites.
“Once you set up a Web site it doesn’t excuse you from anything under the law,” said Pearson. “If you use my name without my permission you may have to understand that I may sue you.”
John Tyson says the school just wanted to exert its control over the students.
“The issue is power and control,” says John Tyson, who supported his son’s efforts to create the Web site and is now one of his biggest defenders.
“There was a tremendous opportunity to learn here. Why didn’t they take that opportunity and work with the students? There was absolutely no malicious intent in this thing.”