Social Media Ethical Dilemma: the Admin-less Facebook Group

Case Study: As with any institution of a reasonable size, Grand Rapids Community College has its detractors who occasionally express themselves via social media.

One of the handful of anti-GRCC groups on Facebook recently had its administrator vacate his position, leaving the group leaderless. The ethical dilemma I'm presented with is: do I seize this opportunity to join the group, establish myself as the admin, and promptly abolish the group?

The answer is, of course, no. That would be unethical, and I run the risk of making the problem worse. Here's why:

• First, criticism is perfectly fine - not everyone has had a positive experience and they're entitled to tell the world about it. Moreover, their complaints are powerful in helping frame the college's priorities which ultimately resolves the problems.
• Second, the deletion of the group may be noticed by those who are currently members as a status update, which may spark an investigation which (along with their resulting ire) will be directed at me - a GRCC flak.
• Third, the content on the group is barely-coherent and riddled with profanity, anti-gay slurs, misspellings and shoddy grammar - so it's unlikely many people will take it seriously.

Ultimately the group will go away of its own accord simply because it isn't a viewpoint shared by enough individuals to sustain it. Given the nature of the sentiment, here is a very small chance that reputation of the organization will be harmed by its existence as most people likely find it unpersuasive.

Student's Free Speech Rights Infringed Upon by School District Over Facebook Group

It's apparently a busy time for online civil rights issues:

Student Who Created Facebook Group Critical of Teacher Sues High School Over Suspension
By David Kravets | December 09, 2008 | Wired.com

"Katherine Evans, a former Florida high school student who was disciplined for "cyberbullying" a teacher on Facebook, is suing the school principal on allegations of violating her free speech rights. [...] The lawsuit, filed Monday in a Florida federal court, concerns Katherine Evans, now 19, who was suspended as a senior last year after creating a Facebook group devoted to her English teacher. The group was called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met!," and featured a photograph of the teacher, and an invitation for other students to "express your feelings of hatred." After people's comments derided Evans for the online stunt, and expressed support for the teacher, she deleted the group. But Pembroke Pines Charter High School, which did not respond for comment, suspended Evans for three days for "disruptive behavior" and for "Bullying / Cyber Bullying Harassment towards a staff member," according to the lawsuit, which is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Evans was removed from her from advanced placement classes "and forced her into the lesser-weighted honors classes." The lawsuit alleges the black mark on Evans' permanent record is "unjustifiably straining her academic reputation and good standing." [Source...]

The school is totally in the wrong on this; it's a clear violation of the precedent set forth in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (and likely other precedents, though the school might try to argue it's protected by Morse v. Frederick which would be illegitimate since it's not illegal to say you don't like someone AND it wasn't done during a school-supervised event). Students have free speech rights - and the fact that this group was created out in the ether of the Internet and not scrawled on a bathroom wall or passed out in a flyer on school grounds even further undermines the school district's already-weak case against Evans. Teachers are just going to have to grow thicker skins.

She didn't make any libellous comments, and she was expressing a genuine opinion using her real identity (which eliminates the possibility that she would even be violating the absurdly-strict [unconstitutional, and unenforceable] provisions of the "Violence Against Women and Justice Department Reauthorization Act of 2005").