Judge Holds Restriction on Student's Free Speech to be Valid

U.S. District Judge James M. Munley upheld an eighth grader’s 10 day school suspension for creating a fake My Space page which depicted her principal as a pedophile and sex addict. Although the My Space profile did not use the principal’s name, the profile photo was the taken from the school’s website and identified the principal as a 40-year-old bisexual who interests included, “being a tight a**,” “f**king in my office,” and “hitting on students and their parents.”

Attorneys for the student argued that the suspension was unconstitutional because the speech took place outside of the school and violated the parental rights of the student’s parents to determine how to properly raise their child.

In a 20-page opinion, Judge Munley differentiated the case from the last three school-related free speech cases. Specifically, Munley argued the fake My Space profile was more closely related to lewd and vulgar speech or speech that promoted illegal actions than political speech. (see Bethel School District v. Fraser; Mores v. Fredrick). Although the speech did not cause a large disruption at school (where students discussed the My Space profile and print out of it was given to the Principal) and occurred off campus, the connection between the off-campus action and on-campus effect was strong enough to warrant the student’s 10 day suspension.

For a detailed article on this case, see The Legal Intelligencer.

Comments

[proquest digital dissertations]

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[Anon]

I'm not real sure how the suspension could be unconstitutional simply because it took place outside of school. It would be interesting to know what the argument was.