Student online speech a tricky subject for school

By Emily Baugh, Staff Writer
Laura Soto, Features Editor

Student Press Law Center Attorney Advocate Adam Goldstein said of the 515 calls about censorship he has received, 16 concerned schools punishing students for expression on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. One example he cited occurred in October of this year when a high school in Massachusetts suspended students for four days for making a Facebook group that expressed inappropriate sexual interest in a teacher.

Another was a similar case where various students in a Colorado middle school received in-school suspensions for having information on MySpace pages the vice principal deemed inappropriate.

Courts in the United States have been trying to develop common rules for the cases involving students’ online free speech that have been brought before them. The verdict: using the Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court case from 1969.

"Tinker’s ‘material disruption’ standard seems to be, for now, the standard of choice for the majority of courts in applying the First Amendment to independent student speech on the Internet where, at least some parts of it, trickle on campus," according to the Student Press Law Center website.

Although Tinker’s standard is not used 100 percent of the time, it is applied to some of the court cases involving students’ freedom of speech online. The ruling limits only speech that disrupts school or is harmful to another student or even a teacher. There have been recent cases that have provided some precedent for these situations.

According to the Fall 2007 SPLC Report, the Western Pennsylvania federal district court’s decision in Layshock v. Hermitage School District ruled for a student that was suspended for creating a satirical MySpace profile of his principal. However, some teachers and administrators are still unclear as to what constitutes inappropriate use of these sites.

North Social Studies Teacher Geoff Aiken has had a Facebook account since summer.

"People in the building, when they’re here, I don’t think they should be using (Facebook) to do whatever they’re doing," Aiken said. "They’re here to learn rather than mess around with computers."

However, the decision of whether or not a student should be punished for posting things outside of school that are possibly threatening to staff and peers or deemed inappropriate isn’t all too clear to Aiken.

"That’s kind of a gray area there," Aiken said.

North Principal Jeffry Henderson’s stance on the subject of disciplinary action varies depending on when and where students access these websites.

"If students are updating their MySpaces and Facebooks at home and are not causing a disturbance at school, then there are no disciplinary actions taken by the school. But if they are checking their accounts while at school, then disciplinary actions can be taken against the students," Henderson said.

Henderson said he has a Facebook account, but only uses it when necessary and does not go looking at students’ profiles with the intent of getting them in trouble.

"The only time I get on my Facebook is in response to student harassment when they’re on the Facebook accounts. I don’t go surfing the website in order to see if anyone is doing anything they’re not supposed to be doing," Henderson said.