Designated as a California Distinguished School, National Blue Ribbon School and boasting a California Exemplary Career Technical Education Program Award, Clark Magnet High School has quite the reputation to uphold. Therefore, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that the school administration is taking notes from George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984.

Recently, a student frustrated by the inadequacy of his substitute teacher made a video parodying the situation. The video, entitled Hitler Goes to Clark, depicts the leader of World War II Germany breaking down in front of his military generals. The English subtitles to the German video have been modified to reflect on the student’s issues with the teacher.

The school retaliated by forcing a takedown of the video, which ironically led to a reupload by a third party, and by suspending the student. According to the student, the official reason for the suspension is libel towards the substitute teacher, but in this case that is simply not true. Libel is defined by GUSD’s board policies as “false and unprivileged publication by writing, printing, picture, effigy, or other fixed representation to the eye, about a specific individual, that tends to harm the individual’s reputation or to lower the individual in the esteem of the community.”

The parody points out the teacher’s habit of glossing over important aspects of the class, leaving the students confused and unable to learn. It did not falsify evidence in an attempt to harm the substitute’s reputation, so it doesn’t fall under the definition of libel. Frank D. LoMonte, the Executive Director of Student Press Law Center, wrote that Clark Magnet “acted illegally in this case and the student is entitled to be reinstated to school with a clean disciplinary record.” LoMonte stated that the video is “obviously humor” and no viewer would believe that it is meant as factual content.

“This would never be tolerated for a moment in the adult world. Imagine that this was a YouTube video ridiculing Governor Brown, and after seeing it, Governor Brown issued a fine to the citizen who created it. The public would be outraged and the fine would be thrown out in court instantly as unconstitutional,” LoMonte wrote. “The public completely understands the limitations of government punitive authority against adults, but fails to understand that the same limitations must necessarily apply to young adults. The Constitution has no age limits.”

Clark Magnet is not the only school adapting totalitarian rule into its administration. In February 2015, Reid Sagehorn, a former Rogers High School student, made a sarcastic comment online about his principal which earned him a seven week suspension. After a court case, the school was forced to pay $325,000 in damages to Sagehorn. The federal judge dealing with the case, John R. Tunheim, wrote that “the general rule is that off-campus statements are ‘protected under the First Amendment and not punishable by school authorities unless they are true threats or are reasonably calculated to reach the school environment and are so egregious as to pose a serious safety risk or other substantial disruption in that environment.’”

Obviously, in Clark Magnet’s case, the issue does not cause a safety risk or a substantial disruption, nor is it libel towards the teacher or a true threat to the school. The school is breaking federal law with no respect to the student’s basic rights in a feeble attempt at damage control. The school’s primary goal should be to educate students, not rob them of their human rights. Instead of punishing the student and acting as the Big Brother, the school administration should’ve taken the criticisms seriously and worked with the student to avoid further hindrances in the quality of his and his classmates’ education.

“If a teacher is not adequately preparing her students and is administering unfair tests, that should be the greater concern for the school, not whether a teacher’s feelings were hurt by being ridiculed. It may not have been the nicest or kindest way to present criticism, but the Constitution is not a ‘politeness code’ and it is not a punishable offense to be impolite to government employees when complaining about their effectiveness,” LoMonte wrote.