Riley Stratton, a Minnesota student, stunned the world by winning a lawsuit against her school district for violating the student's constitutional rights by viewing her Facebook page and email accounts without her permission, and gained $70K in the settlement.
The lawsuit was filed in 2012 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, according to the lawsuit, Riley Stratton was given detention after posting disparaging comments about a teacher's aide on her Facebook page, even though she was at home and not using school computers. The ACLU also said administrators viewed her online conversations with a boy because of a complaint the two were using computers to talk about sex.
"I was in tears. I was embarrassed when they made me give over my password." Riley said during an interview with Star-Tribune last Tuesday.
After a parent complained about the Facebook chat, the school called her in and demanded her password. With a sheriff deputy looking on, she complied, and they browsed her Facebook page in front of her, according to the report.
Minnewaska Superintendent Greg Schmidt stated that "It was believed the parent had given permission to look at her cellphone," but the district did not have a consent form signed by the parent which is now a policy requirement.
Wallace Hilke, an ACLU attorney who helped lead Riley's case, told the Star-Tribune that students' use of social media is not the school's business unless it involves cyberbullying or poses a substantial threat to school activities.
"They punished her for doing exactly what kids have done for 100 years -- complaining to her friends about teachers and administrators. She wasn't spreading lies or inciting them to engage in bad behavior; she was just expressing her personal feelings."
Sandra Stratton, Riley's mother stated she wasn't informed or invited to sit in when officials "interrogated" her daughter.
"They never once told me they were going to bring her into the room and demand her Facebook password, I'm hoping schools kind of leave these things alone so parents can punish their own kids for things that happen off school grounds."
The Minnewaska School District has agreed to pay $70,000 to settle the 2012 case involving former Minnewaska Area Middle School sixth-grader. Riley said she was happy the case is over and that the school has changed its rules. She said the experience was embarrassing and hard to go through, but that schools elsewhere will hear about the case and will not punish other students the way she was disciplined.
