On home computers, kids can mock school officials

Two Pennsylvania teens cannot be disciplined at school for MySpace parodies of their principals created on home computers, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday in a high-profile case involving students and free speech.

The postings, however lewd or offensive, were not likely to cause significant disruptions at school and are therefore protected under prior Supreme Court case law, 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. The ACLU represented both students.

However, six judges who dissented in one of the twin cases said they feared that 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 D. Michael Fisher wrote in the dissent involving the Blue Mountain School District in eastern Pennsylvania.

In that case, an eighth-grade honors student disciplined for two dress-code violations created a MySpace page in March 2007 using an actual photo of the principal with a fake name. The site purported to be that of 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."

"Though disturbing, the record indicates that the profile was so outrageous that no one took its content seriously," the 3rd U.S. Circuit majority wrote yesterday, overturning its own prior ruling. "[The student] testified that she intended the profile to be a joke between herself and her friends."

In the other case, Hickory High School senior Justin Layshock in December 2005 created a parody that said his principal smoked marijuana and kept beer behind his desk. The Hermitage School District said that it substantially disrupted school operations and suspended him, but the suspension was overturned by a district judge, the appeals panel and now the full 3rd Circuit.

In a rare move, the full court heard oral arguments last year after separate three-judge panels issued conflicting rulings in the two cases.

Such disparities are common around the country as school districts wrestle with how to address online behavior that can range from pranks to threats to cyberbullying. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit has upheld school discipline in two similar cases, but the issue has yet to reach the Supreme Court.

"This is a very exciting case, really at the cutting edge, and it's not going to end here," said lawyer Wendy Beetlestone, an education lawyer in Philadelphia who was not involved in the case. She served as general counsel for the city's school district from 2002 to 2005.

"The Supreme Court will have to figure out what's the difference between inside the school gates and outside the school gates, when bricks and mortar don't really apply, and school kids are constantly online communicating with each other about things concerning the school and things not concerning the school," she said.