Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Hearing on Student's Right to Speech

- US Circuit Court of Appeals: March 5, 2008

Fact
A 17-year-old high school student in Connecticut, Avery Doninger, filed a suit against her school that barred her from serving as a school secratary because she publicly disparaged a school official on her blog. On her blog, she encouraged other students to "piss her[the school official] off, " and the school told her not to serve as a school secratary even though she was re-elected in write-in votes. She lost in a federal court and appealed to the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

Issue Should law allow school to limit a student's right to speech when the speech was performed on-line, not inside of the school or during school-time?

Rule US Constitution First Amendment; Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community School District (1969); Papish v. Bd. of Curators of the Univ. of Missouri (1973); Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986); Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988); Morse v Frederick (2007); Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedspot Central School District in New York.

Analysis
(1) School may not have a right to regulate a student's speech because the speech did not take place on-campus and was not clearly distruptive to the school. As Judge Sonia Sotomayor said, a school may not have the right because "pedagogical rights can't supersede the rights of students off campus to have First Amendment rights."
(2) School may have a right to regulate an electronic message on a school official transmitted to students, even though it happened off campus, as was the Wisniewski case in which the court upheld that school can regulate a student's derogatory remark on a teacher using instant-messaging icon.

Conclusion Pending

Quote "It's just a bigger soapbox." -Student's attorney

Sources

Posted by 해람 at 11:12 PM
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