« Ind. Law - "It's the law" examines prosecutors | Main | Ind. Decisions - Supreme Court issues one today »

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Courts - "Florida high school student files complaint after suspension for creating Facebook page critical of teacher"

The ILB has a long list of entries relating to MySpace, including the case of A.B. v.State of Indiana, where, as reported in this May 14th entry, both the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, using differing rationales, "overruled a judge who placed a middle school student on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing her principal over school policy on body piercings."

In this story yesterday in the Miami Herald, Jennifer Moohey Piedra reports:

A recent graduate of Pembroke Pines Charter High filed a lawsuit against the school's principal for allegedly violating her First Amendment rights, after she was suspended for posting negative comments on the Internet about a teacher.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court, on behalf of Katherine Evans, 18, of Pembroke Pines.

The drama began in November 2007 when Evans, a senior at the school, created a Facebook page that criticized her Advanced Placement English teacher, Sarah Phelps, as ``the worst teacher I've ever met.'' * * *

Two days after posting the information, Evans took it down on her own free will.

But when Peter Bayer, the school's principal, learned of the posting, he suspended Evans for ``bullying and cyber bullying harassment towards a staff member.''

Evans had to stay out of school for three days, she was removed from her AP classes and forced into ''lesser-weighted honors classes,'' according to the lawsuit.

The ACLU claims that Evans First Amendment rights -- ``the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and opinions in the public arena -- were violated.

More information can be found in this Dec. 9th story on the Student Press Law Center Some quotes:
The dispute stems from a page that Evans posted on Facebook, a social-networking Web site, denouncing her AP English teacher for her "insane antics" and inviting others to "express your feelings of hatred" by posting messages to the site. According to the complaint filed with the court, the Web site was up for only two days, over a weekend, and was not seen by the teacher before Evans voluntarily pulled it down. The Facebook site attracted only three posted comments, all of them supporting the teacher and criticizing Evans.

Evans was disciplined on the grounds of violating Broward County school board policies against "Bullying / Cyber bullying / Harassment towards a staff member" and "Disruptive behavior," according to a copy of her Notice of Suspension attached to the complaint.

The complaint contends that punishing Evans for purely off-campus speech that created no disruption at school violated her right to free speech. Attorneys Randall Marshall and Maria Kayanan of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida staff and outside legal counsel Matthew D. Bavaro filed the complaint.

"Students cannot be punished for posting comments online from their home computers criticizing their teachers. Absent a credible threat of harm, criticism is protected by the First Amendment," Kayanan, associate legal director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a news release. * * *

Student online speech is a prolific area of First Amendment litigation. The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday in the case of Layshock v. Hermitage School District, in which a Pennsylvania school district is appealing a lower court's ruling that the district violated a student's First Amendment rights by suspending him for posting sarcastic comments mocking his principal on a MySpace page.

The SPLC site includes a link to the complaint in the Katherine Evans case.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 10, 2008 09:09 AM
Posted to Courts in general