UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a Pennsylvania public high school student who was punished by her school after she cursed her cheer team on Snapchat on a Saturday night while off campus. Legal experts and educators have watched the case, B.L. v. Mahanoy closely — the high court's… Continue reading SCOTUS agrees to hear B.L v. Mahanoy Area School District, calling student’s off-campus First Amendment rights into question
Tag: online speech
Speech beyond the schoolhouse gate
School districts — and the courts — are trying to gauge how far administrators' reach goes when monitoring students' speech.
Supreme Court overturns man’s conviction for violent Facebook posts
The Court ruled in favor of Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man who was convicted in 2010 under a federal threat-speech statute for violent language he used on Facebook to describe his wife, local elementary schools and an FBI agent.
Pa. high school students protest warnings to avoid ‘irresponsible’ speech
About two dozen students at a suburban Pittsburgh high school staged a protest Monday after school and police officials told students they could face criminal charges if they spoke about teachers’ pending sexual assault and victim intimidation investigations.
U. of Tulsa administrator threatens to punish student journalists for investigating student’s punishment over Facebook posts
When George “Trey” Barnett was suspended from the University of Tulsa without a disciplinary hearing for violating the institution’s harassment policy and for sharing information about his pending disciplinary case, he asked the student newspaper to investigate.
As school officials work to counter cyberbullying, state lawmakers ensure student off-campus privacy isn’t trampled
While school officials often say such searches are necessary to combat cyberbullying and other illegal activity, several lawmakers and free speech advocates argue efforts to regulate off-campus speech are an invasion of students’ privacy.
Civil liberties groups call on Tenn. school district to revise 'unconstitutional' tech policy
A Tennessee school district’s technology and internet policy, which allows school administrators to examine electronic devices students bring from home and monitor communications or data transmitted on the district’s network, violates students’ rights to free speech and protection against “suspicionless searches,” The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a letter to the district Monday.
Former Minn. nursing student files appeal after losing Facebook speech case
A federal court has dismissed a suit from a former student at Central Lakes College, who sued college administrators for expelling him from a nursing program over remarks on his personal Facebook page.
Student’s “lewd” video about teacher provokes errant Wisconsin ruling applying “online harassment” law
Can derogatory remarks about a teacher be both constitutionally protected speech and also punishable as harassment?A Wisconsin appeals court appears to believe so.The Wisconsin Supreme Court is being asked to take up the case of "Kaleb K.," a 15-year-old student from Stevens Point, Wisc., who was arrested after posting a homemade rap on YouTube filled with profane, degrading language about his Spanish teacher.In September 2012, a juvenile-court judge declared Kaleb delinquent on the grounds of violating state criminal statutes against disorderly conduct and unlawful use of a computer communications system.In a ruling last November, the state Court of Appeals threw out the disorderly conduct charge, finding that Kaleb's lyrics, though distasteful, were not threatening, obscene or otherwise outside the boundaries of the First Amendment.But the court then went on to uphold the conviction under the state's computer-harassment law, which makes it a misdemeanor if a speaker "sends a message to [a] person on an electronic mail or other computerized communication system" that contains lewd or profane language "with the intent to harass, annoy, or offend."It's possible to harass someone even with a constitutionally protected message if the speech is delivered in an especially harassing manner.
Kansas Regents provoke academic freedom firestorm with policy forbidding “improper” online speech
If members of the Kansas Board of Regents have a low tolerance for unkind online speech, they'd best keep their browsers closed.