The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate." But the Internet has both courts and schools trying to determine just where that gate is nowadays.

The Internet's transformation of the way we communicate has led to great uncertainty about the scope of students' First Amendment rights at public schools and universities. And a pair of pending Pennsylvania cases could force the federal courts to resolve the confusion.

As the Supreme Court has ruled, students outside school have the same First Amendment rights as adults. And while they don't shed those rights entirely on campus, they are curtailed during school or school-sponsored activities.

That's where the Internet is causing difficulties. Online speech isn't just off-campus speech; it's everywhere. What students say on the Web can be accessed on campus and has an on-campus impact. So schools want to regulate such speech to preserve order and discipline.

On the other hand, some students feel schools are improperly punishing them for online speech that has little or no effect in school. And Internet communication is an extremely significant part of students' lives these days.

So far, court rulings on the issue have made a muddle of things, leaving administrators, students, and parents scratching their heads.

In one Pennsylvania case, Layshock v. Hermitage School District, a student created a MySpace page on a home computer, posted a photo of his school principal, and accused him of abusing alcohol and being a "big whore."

While the page generated some controversy on campus and affected the principal's ability to do his job, the trial court found the disruption insufficient to permit disciplinary action consistent with free-speech rights.

In another Pennsylvania case, J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, the trial court faced similar facts but came to a very different result. In that case, a student used her parents' home computer to create an imposter MySpace profile, complete with photo, indicating that her middle school principal was a pedophile and a sex addict. The student was suspended for 10 days and brought a lawsuit claiming infringement on her First Amendment rights.

The trial court upheld the discipline, finding the speech at issue "much more vulgar and offensive" than that in Layshock. It held that vulgar and lewd speech off campus is subject to discipline when it has an effect on campus.

These courts have looked at whether the speech at issue caused a substantial disruption; was sexually explicit, indecent, or crude; or advocated illegal drug use - the primary criteria used by the Supreme Court in examining student speech. But none of the Supreme Court decisions concerned off-campus, online speech.

The question remains: What's the test for online speech? Answering it is all the more important given the problems of online bullying, or "cyberbullying." There have been cases of anguished students actually committing suicide as a result of it.

It's worth noting that a number of recent student-speech court decisions involved immature adolescent behavior - sometimes laced with realistic or hyperbolic threats of violence - rather than speech conveying thought-provoking ideas.

Consider how the type of speech addressed by the Supreme Court has changed. In 1968, the seminal Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District struck down a school regulation that prohibited students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Last year, by contrast, in Morse v. Frederick, the court affirmed the disciplining of a student displaying what he admitted was a "meaningless" banner proclaiming "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS."

But the First Amendment clearly protects offensive and even stupid speech. If schools have the power to punish all online student speech simply because it might find its way onto campus - as a few courts have held - some fear students' First Amendment rights would be eviscerated.

This is the problem now squarely before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia, where appeals of the J.S. and Layshock decisions are pending. The court must render a clear, easily followed rule that strikes the right balance between students' legitimate First Amendment rights and a safe, orderly school environment.

Robert C. Clothier is a First Amendment attorney and a partner with Fox Rothschild. His e-mail address is rclothier@foxrothschild.com.