After school one day in May 2008, Mr. Cohen’s daughter, known in court papers as J. C., videotaped friends at a cafe, egging them on as they laughed and made mean-spirited, sexual comments about another eighth-grade girl, C. C., calling her “ugly,” “spoiled,” a “brat” and a “slut.” J. C. posted the video on YouTube. The next day, the school suspended her for two days. “What incensed me,” said Mr. Cohen, a music industry lawyer in Los Angeles, “was that these people were going to suspend my daughter for something that happened outside of school.” On behalf of his daughter, he sued. [...] Judge Wilson ruled in favor of the young videographer, because the disruption was only minimal: administrators dealt with the matter quietly and before lunch recess. [...] The district had to pay J. C.’s costs and lawyers’ fees: $107,150.80. (NYT)

The lesson Mr. Cohen hopes his daughter learns from the case is about the limits on governmental intrusion. “A girl came to school who was upset by something she saw on the Internet,” Mr. Cohen said in a telephone interview, “and these people had in their mind that they were going to do something about it. The school doesn’t have that kind of power. It’s up to the parents to discipline their child.” He did chastise his daughter, saying, “That wasn’t a nice thing to do.” He describes her video as “relentlessly juvenile,” but not an example of cyberbullying, which he said he did not condone. His daughter offered to remove it from YouTube. But Mr. Cohen keeps it posted, he said, “as a public service” so viewers can see “what kids get suspended for in Beverly Hills.”

Imagine you just found out that your kid posted a nasty clip on YouTube belittling on of her peers. What would you do? I mean most parents with a sense of ethos and civility (which hopefully we want pass on to our children) would do a lot of things, the first of which is take down the offensive video. But not Evan. When his daughter offered to take it down he decided it was better to leave the hurtful material up. Not very surprising considering he's an record industry lawyer...It figures doesn't it? I mean the apple didn't fall all that far from the tree here. The daughter was a brat (which one might write off to poor parenting) and the father is an arrogant fuckhead who believes that online bullying is a personal right. One would think that winning the case would be enough and that once he got his money he would take video down. I mean what kind of person would leave up a demeaning message about a little girl the same age as his own daughter? Well this kind of guy:"Wasn't a nice thing to do?" And that's disciplining your child for bullying someone? You just demonstrated the failure of your own statement about parental responsibility. I realize you're a lawyer and ruining people's lives is your business. I realize you work for the record industry which is known to have no morals whatsoever. I also realize that as a rich fucker you probably have very little whatsoever to do with your child's upbringing, but your actions are deplorable. Still, as you pointed out so blithely, this post is just "something on the internet" so I guess you can't get very upset about it after all.