$665,000 Settlement For East Bay Student Punished For Mock Terrorist Video
“An East Bay school district has agreed to pay $665,000 to settle a free-speech suit by a former student who was suspended from a leadership class, and briefly barred from serving as student body president, after posting a video that showed him as a James Bond hero fighting off terrorists, the youth’s lawyers said Tuesday,” reports Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The video by Nathaniel Yu was a parody, and the supposed terrorists were played by two of Yu’s Muslim friends, his lawyers said in announcing the settlement with the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. They said district officials falsely described the production as hate speech, and that the ensuing publicity led to threats of violence against Yu.”
“In an apology that was part of the settlement, the district said the video was not hate speech and that it ‘egrets the negative consequences associated with mischaracterizations regarding you and the content of the video.’ But Mark Davis, a lawyer for the district, said the apology was only for the harm that Yu suffered, and the settlement does not include any admission of violating the youth’s rights.”
