Court Vacates Online Student-Speech Rulings

Court Vacates Online Student-Speech Rulings

When it comes to students’ speech rights in the digital world, the courts are interpreting the First Amendment through a Supreme Court precedent dating to well before the birth of the public internet.

That 1969 precedent has led to conflicting legal opinions on whether public schools can punish students for their off-campus critiques of their administrators on Facebook, MySpace and other online venues. The latest example was in February, when a federal appeals court issued two opposing opinions on the topic, which the U.S. Supreme Court has never squarely addressed.

Now that appellate court, the Pennsylvania-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has decided to discard those conflicting decisions and rehear both cases on June 3.

School officials complained the rulings left them unclear on what legal legs they had to stand on (.pdf) when it comes to punishing students for their online, off-campus speech.

“It is undeniable that a student can more easily demean and injure the reputation of a member of the school community with vulgar and lewd language and share such pronouncements with a targeted school audience by way of the internet than by any other means, including making pronouncements in a school building,” the Hermitage School District of Pennsylvania wrote the appeals court.

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/studentspeech/#ixzz0l15DvBgB