Do students have a First Amendment right to make fun of their principals and teachers on Facebook and other social-media sites? Or can schools discipline them for talking out of school?
In a pair of free-speech rulings, a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania last week came down on the side of the students. In both cases, the court said that schools were wrong to suspend students for posting parodies of their principals on MySpace — one in which a boy made fun of his principal’s body size, and another in which a girl made lewd sexual comments about her principal.
The speech in these cases is the sort of derisive put-down of authority figures that students have always engaged in. In the past, kids used to say these things to each other in the cafeteria or at recess, or pass them in notes during class.
Now, they post their digs on social-media sites — where principals and teachers can sometimes see them. With the explosion of Facebook, Twitter, and other online forums for self-expression, the issue of what rights students have on these sites is a critical free-speech issue — as important, arguably, as what speech rights they have in the school building.
In the Pennsylvania MySpace cases, the court struck just the right balance. It said schools have a legitimate interest in preventing educational disruption, but they have no right to clamp down on students’ online speech simply because they do not like it.
Justin Layshock, a high school senior in western Pennsylvania, created a MySpace profile in 2005 that purported to be from his principal. It was not particularly clever stuff. A major theme was the use of the word big, an apparent reference to the man’s size.
The principal found the way he was described to be “degrading” and “demoralizing.” Justin’s parents agreed, and when they found out, they grounded him. Justin, of his own accord, went to the principal’s office and apologized.
