KNIGHTSTOWN, Ind. - Three students and their families have settled a civil rights lawsuit over the students' expulsions for making a movie in which evil teddy bears attack a teacher.

The settlement was approved by the school board on a 5-2 vote Tuesday.

The lawsuit resulted from a dispute over the 78-minute movie titled "The Teddy Bear Master" made by four students and distributed on a very limited basis on DVD. School officials saw the movie as a threat to Knightstown Intermediate School teacher Dan Clevenger and expelled the four.

Two of the students, Isaac Imel and Cody Overbay, sued the school district on grounds it had violated their First Amendment rights. A third student, Charlie Ours, later joined the lawsuit. The fourth student did not challenge the school's expulsion.

The boys, who are sophomores, completed the movie last summer. In it, the "teddy bear master" orders stuffed animals to kill a teacher who had embarrassed him, but students battle the toy beasts, according to documents filed in court.

Superintendent David McGuire said the school district's insurance company will cover the cost of the $69,000 settlement that will be split among the plaintiffs.

School Board President Mike Fruth cast one of the dissenting votes.

"I don't agree with our justice system," Fruth said.

The settlement terms also require the students' suspensions and expulsions be expunged from their records, that the students be allowed to make up missed work, and that Imel and Ours write a letter of apology to Clevenger and his wife.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker in December had granted a preliminary injunction against the expulsions of Imel and Overbay, saying school officials had not proved the movie disrupted school. In her ruling, Barker described the movie as "humiliating" and "obscene."


http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?...0&f=00&fg=copy


LOL! they didn't desrve to be expelled for that it was just a movie have a sense of humor

How gay. They were only making a movie. PEople these days.

78 Minutes? That's impressing!

lolz at this one man. i actually hate teachers and theres nothing wrong on making a movie like that dude, how immature

i know they got expelled because the teacher felt threatened

OMFG! I'm threatened of a teddy bear!

There's someone who needs another job, among other things.

This was so stupid. I can't believe he felt threated because of a stupid movie like this. I mean, if it was a movie of students directly killing a teacher or something then that would make some sense, but teddy bears? Oooh, SO scary...

I would love to see that movie, though!!!

damn thats one long amateur video!

WTF?! I can't believe anyone can sue for anything in the U.S .It must be horrible living there.

I remember once I photoshopped a teacher that I hated very much- having sex with another teacher. The whole school was talking about it, and they were like whoever did that will get a suspention from all the local schools. It was one of the scariest moments in my life.

weird

These ppl need to grow up.
This is just nothing, I guess.

isnt this kinda taking away their right of freedom of expression?

I'm glad they got expelled, but I don't agree with them being sued.

Teachers get barely any respect anymore and yes they are scared in the classroom and that spills out as well, if they piss of students in school now (even if it's the student's fault) they can be threatened outside. It doesn't matter whether if it was a teddy bear, it shows malicious intent unless it was purely a joke but when the person involved doesn't like it, it's not a joke and jokes shouldn't be at the expense of others. Teachers do one of the most important job in society and even though they're not all great, they have a much harder job then they used to and shouldn't have to put up with seeing **** like that about themselves. You shouldn't even think about your teachers in such a way.

Sinista - you mistake freedom of expression'/speech in the way that a lot of people do, there's no such thing as total freedom when in a society because you will always be impinging on another's freedom. Hence there are limits and such a thing as appropriate behaviour.

Good point ~A*D*O*R*A~, but expulsion isn't the answer, maybe a week of suspension!

Thanks, I don't know about a week of suspension though. Is the teacher and perhaps other teachers now going to feel uncomfortable and worried - will the students fear affected grades? I think if someone(s) is going to show that amount of disrespect and in a 79min length movie, then their chance at that school is in jeopardy and they should see how hard it is to transfer to another school or see whether another school will put up with that - they need to know the reality of their situation and respect the great benefit and advantage a 'right' of education is. So at least a longer suspension or long term punishment would be in order.

Yes, or perhaps summer school with it

I see no reason for why the students should be punished that badly. It does not seem that the movie was created out of anger at the teacher and instead was made just to be an interesting movie. Who knows where he got the idea, but he did and I doubt he made it to be threatening to the teacher anyways. And then, there is the fact that the teachers were SAVED by the STUDENTS, also. This also just reinforces the fact that it was just a movie made to have some action. The teacher thing was also just a way to introduce the evil bears into the movie. I mean, if this was an older person making this movie, they would probably uses something to attack their boss. It's just a way of introducing the reason for the use of the teddy bears into the plot. It's just a movie. Maybe he made it for a film festival or something. It was just inspiration that struck him. He IS a student and thus teachers are who he'd use, as teachers are what most people who would watch this movie would understand (you know, the teenage age group).

This entire thing is all a matter of prespective and the teacher in the case is just overanalyzing it and taking it the completely wrong way.

Alot of what you just said is speculation and yet you say the teacher is taking it completely the wrong way? The court looked at the case, we can disagree with their punishment because that is the matter of perspective but the perspectives of the people involved were looked at in court and they reached the decision that the students were out of order. They also released the movie on limited DVD release - something which needs adhering to some legislation and permission - did they fulfil that obligation?

I don't deny however that courts can sometimes be wrong.

Well, about the teacher taking it completely the wrong way, That's not what I originally meant to type (my original post would have been there if the site hadn't stopped working yesterday before I got the chance to post it...). I say say he took it the wrong way but I didn't mean to say completely.

Then there is the thing about how the students were the ones who stopped the bears. That is not speculation, as it is stated in the article. there are many reasons for which the students may have stpped them. The only way for me to completely make a well thought out argument is to actually see the movie. With that, I can actually debate with a bit less speculation-based argument about it. However, if one were to make a threatening video why would one save the person they were threatening in the end?

Neither of us can really fully argue our points without further insight into the matter. (And I just wanna watch that movie because to me it does sound quite interesting. It's much like this one movie I saw a couple years ago about action figures who destroy this town, but are stopped byt this one kid and some other action figures. What was the name of that movie? Can't remember right now....)

My friend. while eh was supposed to be doing Math, drew a picture of a teacher shooting himself in repeat period. He got suspended for 10 days. Do these teachers fear that kids will really come on in with a gun, or for that matter, a student's going to come in with.... GASP!... a stuffed Teddy Bear? Get real.