In November 2021, Fairfax County Public Schools (“FCPS”) issued an Informal Request for Proposal to solicit and establish a contract for social media software which would seek to detect and collect data from social media, classify aliases and usernames, identify connections between persons, set alerts for active listening, and produce high-level summary reports. FCPS intends to use the software for “social media listening” in order to monitor “threats, harassment, hate speech and bullying” which “may be directed to racial groups or any student or teacher within FCPS.”
Yet as The Rutherford Institute warned in its letter to members of the Fairfax County School Board, by reportedly subjecting students, parents, and other community members to constant surveillance, the Social Media Monitoring Program lays the groundwork for a broad range of constitutional violations. Specifically, Institute attorneys point out that the social monitoring precrime program threatens to chill lawful First Amendment activity, undermines parents’ rights, could lead to viewpoint discrimination and a troubling expansion of school zero tolerance policies, and may exceed the scope of the Board’s statutory authority.
Denouncing the program as an ill-advised plan that could expose FCPS to legal jeopardy, The Rutherford Institute has asked the Fairfax County School Board to reconsider its adoption of a Social Media Monitoring Program and offered to advise and assist the County in striking a better balance between school safety and the rights of students and parents.
The Rutherford Institute’s letter to the Fairfax County School Board is available at www.rutherford.org.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
Source: https://bit.ly/3JE2s9Q
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