Students' right to be nasty on net upheld

Schools have no right to attack free speech unless they can show "disruption" to teaching

"A US District Court judge has sided with a student who posted an allegedly bullying video on YouTube, saying the school went too far in suspending her. Amid rising concerns over cyber bullying, and even calls for its criminalisation, some courts, parents and free speech advocates are fighting back: students, they say, have a right to be nasty in cyberspace.

One morning in May last year, a student walked crying into Janice Hart's office at a Beverly Hills school. She had been humiliated and couldn't face going to class, the girl told the counsellor. The night before, a classmate had posted a video on YouTube with a group of other students bad-mouthing her, calling her "spoiled", a "brat" and a "slut".

Text and instant messages had been flying ever since. Half the class must have seen the video by now, the girl said. The counsellor took the problem to the principal, who took it to a district administrator, who asked the school district's lawyers what they could do. In the end, citing "cyber bullying" concerns, school officials suspended the girl who posted the video for two days.

That student took the case to court, saying her right to free speech had been violated.

Judge Stephen Wilson wrote in his judgment: "To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offence to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school's activities, runs afoul [of the law].

Source

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).