After delivering the winning shot for the Washington Capitals hockey team, player Joel Ward should've been showered with congratulations. Instead the black athele was the target of racist Twitter comments from a few high school students, and Ward shrugged off the attacks. CNN contributor John S. Wilson wonders if the students' school should have the right to punish the students for their controversial remarks.
Almost immediately after reports of the tweets, the schools began looking into ways of punishing the students for their actions outside the classroom. The schools absolutely should express their discontent with the offensive tweets. But should they punish the students? Do they even have the ability to do so? Not likely.
One official, Jonathan Pope of the Gloucester School Committee in Massachusetts, admitted as much in an interview with MSBNC.com: "We don't know whether we actually have any legal standing to implement any kinds of penalties for that kind of behavior done outside school on a private communication system."
Read John S. Wilson's entire piece at CNN.
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