Students at Granville Junior-Senior High School started a newspaper that they largely produced and distributed off-campus. The newspaper was a satire catered to the student community and was meant to emulate National Lampoon, which focuses largely on sexual satire. School administrators suspended the students for five days for publishing the newspaper which they viewed as offensive, indecent and obscene.” The students sued the school officials for violating their First Amendment rights and claimed that administrators did not have the authority to punish students for off-campus activities. In June 1976, the district court sided with the school. The students appealed and in October 1979 the Second Circuit court sided with the students ruling that school officials did not have authority beyond the schoolhouse gate. The students deliberately conceived, executed, and distributed the paper outside of school and any activity that occurred in the school was minimal.