Slur-Filled Web Site Hurtful but Not Illegal

Wow, do these kids need help.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Before the digital age, there was simply nasty writing on the restroom wall. Now, in the say-it-all era of the Internet, the darker side of teenage expression has found a new place to fester. It is a hive of anonymous slander where girls are listed by name as promiscuous and teachers are accused of being fat and in some instances of having sex with students. There are racial rants. Barbs about being gay. Last week, a teenager posted a rambling threat to kill students and staff members at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, which led to the arrest of a 17-year-old who had recently moved to Tennessee. "It's vile," said Whitman Principal Alan Goodwin, who added that he is a firm believer in free speech but is vexed by the anonymity that the Web site, http://www.peoplesdirt.com, provides for maligning remarks against high schoolers who are named. "Some of these things are causing certain students great distress," he said.