Court: Teens can’t be suspended for MySpace parodies
Judges affirm that schools can't punish students for off-campus internet speech
From staff and wire reports
Read more by staff and wire services reports
Six judges who dissented in one case said they feared salacious online attacks against school officials would go unpunished.
Two Pennsylvania teens should not have been disciplined at school for MySpace parodies of their principals created from off-campus computers, a federal appeals court ruled June 13.
The postings, however lewd or offensive, were not likely to cause significant disruptions at school and therefore are protected under previous Supreme Court case law on students’ rights to free speech, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found.
“Today’s court decision states that you cannot punish students for off-campus speech simply because it offends or criticizes [school officials],” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which represented both students.
However, six judges who dissented in one case said they feared salacious online attacks against school officials would go unpunished.
“It allows a student to target a school official and his family with malicious and unfounded accusations about their character in vulgar, obscene, and personal language,” Judge Michael Fisher wrote in the ruling involving the Blue Mountain School District in eastern Pennsylvania.
In that case, an eighth-grade girl created a MySpace page using an actual photo of the principal with a fake name, and purported that it was posted by a 40-year-old Alabama school principal who described himself—through a string of sexual vulgarities—as a pedophile and sex addict. The internet address included the phrase “kids rock my bed.”
bdreid2@eiu.edu
June 14, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Not sure why schools think they get to monitor speech out of school. The government do not get to control protected speech.
bdreid2@eiu.edu
June 14, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Not sure why schools think they get to monitor speech out of school. The government do not get to control protected speech.
Bev
June 24, 2011 at 2:07 pm
This is a tough one.
While on campus, students are not in a democracy/republic–in fact, no one is. The reason for this seems to be that it disrupts education. With the onset of so many new forms of wide-casting communication, however, students must be taught about the consequences of slander and defamation of character, in any forum. If students choose to enter into improper activities, they must understand–and be subject to–the accompanying responsibilities.
If this nation wants to attract high-quality personnel to the area of education, such people must be protected from the heinous attacks that come via the immature brains of students.
Bev
June 24, 2011 at 2:07 pm
This is a tough one.
While on campus, students are not in a democracy/republic–in fact, no one is. The reason for this seems to be that it disrupts education. With the onset of so many new forms of wide-casting communication, however, students must be taught about the consequences of slander and defamation of character, in any forum. If students choose to enter into improper activities, they must understand–and be subject to–the accompanying responsibilities.
If this nation wants to attract high-quality personnel to the area of education, such people must be protected from the heinous attacks that come via the immature brains of students.