Stand for Student Rights, Amid Piracy Battle
Since the original Napster's demise, the RIAA has been fiercely pursuing music piracy across the country - often at universities. It finds students that have shared music online (a form of copyright infringement), demands that they pay a hefty fine, and takes them to court if they don't.
Students' rights is heading to the courts again.
Amid all the rapid fire litigation, one university has stood up for student rights. The New York Times reports that the University of Oregon refused to answer a subpoena from the RIAA. In a brief supported by the state attorney general, the state university claimed that it had an obligation to protect a student's right to privacy - and that they were under no obligation to give up the student's private information.
For the moment we'll sidestep the touchy issue of music piracy and focus on what's really important here: students' rights.
The issue entered the national spotlight forty years ago when a handful of students wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. In the ensuing court case, Tinker vs. Des Moines, the court decided that students have some constitutional rights - but not all.
Since then, students' free speech has been continuously curtailed by the courts. In 1986 (Bethel School District v. Frazer), the court upheld the administration's right to punish a student for exhibiting free speech that violates school rules.
Two years later, in Hazelwood School District v. Kulhmeier, the court upheld the school's right to censor the newspaper - on the more dubious grounds that the school felt the subjects covered (i.e. student pregnancy) were inappropriate and too sensitive.
More recently, a student in Alaska (see: Morse v. Frederick) was suspended for making an inappropriate statement about drugs - off school grounds but arguably during a "school supervised function."
At times, these students made poor choices. But others, like Kuhlmeier and Tinker, were clearly unjustly punished for practicing their rights to free speech.
Likewise, the students targeted by the RIAA may well have committed a crime by sharing copyrighted music. That doesn't mean we should trample on their rights to privacy, though.
US citizens in general have lost plenty of privacy rights in the wake of 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act. If the university can be forced to give up information on file sharing, what's to stop a subpoena from getting student borrowing records at the library?
It's not a far leap from criminal prosecution to political witchhunt.
Students, in K-12 and College, are a particularly vulnerable group - often without employment and legal representation. They're at the mercy of generous parents or institutions (like the University of Oregon) to stand up for their rights.
Kudos to Oregon for standing up for a student's right to privacy where others have not.
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