Cyberitas

U MAD BRO?

School got you down? Really peeved with your teachers? Had enough of the stress of academics and want to take it out on the Man?

Be mindful before you blog!

In my last post, I commented on the precedents that paved the way to current school speech legislation. In this post, I will briefly explain two recent court cases that tie in the idea of school speech with cyberlaw. Personally, I find these court cases very enthralling because there were many times when I or one of my friends wanted to create similar online profiles.

Firstly, let’s break down Layshock v. Hermitage School District. Justin Layshock, pretty much your average teenager, decided to create a fake MySpace page for his principal from his grandmother’s computer. In this profile, Layshock made several outrageous claims, (e.g. “big hard a**”) so much to the point that it was not plausible that the profile was actually created by Principal Trosch. Consequently, Layshock was suspended, forced into an “Alternative Education Program,” and barred from attending his graduation. The District Court ruled that the school’s punishment violated Layshock’s First Amendment rights, the school’s policies and rules were vague and overboard,and the school’s punishment violated his parents’ Fourteenth Amendment right to raise him in a manner they saw fit.

Secondly, a second, more recent case about online school speech is Blue Mountain School District v. J.S. Two students created a fake MySpace profile about their principal, using a picture they copied from the school website to identify the principal. On this profile, they claimed that the principal was a “pedophile” among other profane and offensive comments about Principal McGonigle and his family. Saying that the students violated school discipline code and computer use code, the administrators suspended the students for ten days. After the student sued the school for violating her First Amendment rights, the court ruled that the suspension was not a violating of her free speech rights. The court said that schools can regulate vulgar off-campus speech even if it did not meet the “substantial disruption” test stated by Tinker.

When I first read about these two cases, I thought to myself, “Aren’t these pretty much the same thing? Why are the court decision so different?” Even without the added dimension of being online, controlling school speech is a very convoluted subject. However, given the results in these different District Courts, interpretation of school speech rights indeed remains quite hazy.

Furthermore, these two cases resulted in a very extreme punishment: suspension. However, keep in mind that suspension is not the only weapon in schools’ arsenals. Schools can pretty much do anything they want with regards to student participation in extracurricular activities. Case in point, the “Douchebag” case, where the school disqualified a student from running for class secretary because of a her blog posts. Though extracurriculars are immensely important to a high schooler’s education (and their college application, for that matter), participation in these activities are not seen as a “right”  to courts.

The Internet makes it increasingly difficult to differentiate between in-school and out-of-school speech. Perhaps your best bet is to not blog publicly about school, but if you must, refrain from using obscenities. Americans have a tendency to be flippant towards the words they say, thinking, “Whatever! I have Freedom of Speech…” Although the Founding Fathers did bequeath us the power to say what is on our mind, we are not totally immune to the consequences. Thus, my stance is simple. As a fellow adolescent, I understand the urge to “rant” after a bad day at school; however, there are many different (safer) ways to release your anger other than posting something vicious and angry online.  Hate to break it to Layshock, but calling your principal “big” will not make him a better principal, nor will it make you a better student. If you really want to impact change at your school, instead of hiding behind a MySpace alias, actually communicate with the administrators who have done you wrong.