Someone should have taken a hammer to that student. Refusing to turn off the phone? Automatic F if I'm teaching the class.
You should read the outrage this is generating on another board...."He had no right to confiscate that students phone, etc." Pfft...
He had no right to confiscate the student's phone, or to not return it. He had every right to kick the stupid bastard out of class though, and if he refused have security escort him out. EDIT: Amusing anecdote, I was in traffic court a while back, and some stupid bitch waiting for her turn with the judge (in the courtroom) actually answered her phone and began having a conversation while the judge was talking to another defendant. The judge interrupted the cunt and said loudly, "Are you stupid?!?! What the hell are you thinking!?!?!" Then had the bailiff confiscate the phone and fined her $100 for contempt of court.
How is it a "reward" to have the dude kicked out, by force if necessary? On what legal grounds would he confiscate the phone? It's not against the law to talk on the phone in class, just seriously, seriously stupid and very bad manners. Tex, I agree with you 100%. I am also not outraged. No sympathy at all for the dumb bastard. Just (as you mentioned) pointing out what the "right" thing to do would have been.
I can't say I blame him for taking this action, but I agree that the better course of action would have been to kick the idiot out of class. It astonishes me how many rude bastards there are who think it's okay to answer their phone in any circumstances. I think the kid needs to hope that if he ever qualifies, he never has to appear in front of this judge.
An instructor does in fact have the authority to confiscate anything that is or becomes contraband when it relates to disciplinary action, which is what this sounds like.
The enrollment contract you sign when you get admitted to a college. You do, of course, have the right to refuse to hand over the phone.... Right after that, expect to be escorted off the campus, your tuition lost.
If this was the future, the judge would have drawn down and yelled "Prepare to be Judged!" Damn present.
Probably should have given him the phone back and dropped him from the class. Even if the professor may have the right to steal something from a student just because he considers it contraband doesn't mean it's OK, and it leaves other professors wide open to start stealing stuff from other students. IMO.
Now, I'm sure the student didn't really object because he figured he would get it back after class, so it's not technically stealing. But not returning it is wrong, IMO.
Now that I have actually read the entire article, I have to wonder why the campus cops were going to arrest the judge if the judge was acting properly. The cops told him that he would be guilty of theft if he didn't give back the phone. When he protested to the cops, the cops then summoned their supervisor who agreed that the judge had no authority to confiscate the phone.
The teacher has the right to confiscate items that disrupt classroom activities. Then, depending on the level of disruption, the teacher can choose to return the phone at a much later date. At my school, the first offense (having cell phone out in class) is 24 hours without it. It'll stay w/ the principal in the office. After a couple of offenses, the principal will keep the phone for a week. It's in the rules. They have the power.
Maybe in YOUR school. At this school, the campus cops were gonna arrest the teacher if he didn't give it back!
But to agree to those rules, they always make students sign some sort of contract or waiver saying they agree to the rules. Not everyone signs it, and not everyone who signs it reads it. One could argue that minors can't be held to such contracts, unless they have lawyers or something present. Simply stepping onto campus does not mean you agree to abide by the rules, because 1) no one notified you that you are agreeing to the rules and 2) you aren't presented with the rules.
Yeah, if the campus police and the professor's supervisor think it was theft, then it's clear that he's in the wrong.
Yeah, the parents sign it as well as the children. At least in my school experience. No one ever reads it though, unfortunately. The school gets away with a lot of crap while parents are forced to send their kid there (or find some expensive alternative) and pay taxes to fund that crap.
But the difference there is, the owner gets his/her property back. In this case, the owner is having to sue to get his property back. The student handled it wrong though. For one, never have your phone on during class, or at least have it on silent or vibrate if you're expecting an important message (grandma died, it's a boy, the test came back positive, etc.). The thing you never do is CONTINUE to use your phone AFTER you've been caught. I don't blame the professor for taking the phone away, but it should have at least been returned to its rightful owner. And then the rightful owner should have been dropped out of the class by the professor. Or drop kicked. Also, school campuses should really invest in those things that disrupt cell phone frequencies. Or at least put enough metal and concrete on the roof to block signals from being sent or received.
Ballsy cops threatening a judge like that. The relationship between most cops and anyone that wears the robes is akin to the relationship between doctors and nurses 50 years ago. In the presence of a judge, cops are to be seen and not heard, and their very utterance is to be obeyed without hesitation.
Fortunately these seemed to be good cops who didn't give a fuck about the judge if he was in the wrong.
