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Student Suspended for Facebook Page Can Sue – NYTimes.com
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A South Florida teenager who sued her former principal after she was suspended for creating a Facebook page criticizing a teacher can proceed with her lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled.
The student, Katherine Evans, is seeking to have her suspension expunged from her disciplinary record. School officials suspended her for three days, saying she had been “cyberbullying” the teacher, Sarah Phelps. Ms. Evans is also seeking a “nominal fee” for what she argues was a violation of her First Amendment rights, her lawyers said, and payment of her legal fees.
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“This is an important victory both for Ms. Evans and Internet free speech,” Ms. Kayanan said, “because it upholds the principle that the right to freedom of speech and expression in America does not depend on the technology used to convey opinions and ideas.”
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Ms. Evans’s suspension first came to the attention of the civil liberties union in 2007. Then a high school senior and an honor student, Ms. Evans repeatedly clashed with Ms. Phelps, her English teacher, over assignments, Ms. Evans has said.
She turned to Facebook to vent her frustration. At home on her computer, Ms. Evans created a Facebook page titled “Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever had” and invited past and current students of Ms. Phelps to post their own comments.
Some students wrote comments agreeing with Ms. Evans’s criticism of Ms. Phelps. Others offered support for the teacher. After a few days, Ms. Evans took down the Facebook page.
Two months later, Ms. Evans says, she was called into the principal’s office and told she was being suspended for creating the page.
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I think this case is being a bit blown out of proportion. It's not about cyberbullying – it's about the first amendment. Cyberbullying is more closely aligned with making threats (and perhaps following through with them). From the stories/case files/legal briefs I have read on this case, the student was well within her legal right to free speech by expressing her opinion that she had a bad teacher. If the page had depicted a threat of some kind toward the teacher, then the school might have had some legal standing for the expulsion, but since the page did not contain any such language, it became a violation of her first amendment rights.
I think this case is being a bit blown out of proportion. It's not about cyberbullying – it's about the first amendment. Cyberbullying is more closely aligned with making threats (and perhaps following through with them). From the stories/case files/legal briefs I have read on this case, the student was well within her legal right to free speech by expressing her opinion that she had a bad teacher. If the page had depicted a threat of some kind toward the teacher, then the school might have had some legal standing for the expulsion, but since the page did not contain any such language, it became a violation of her first amendment rights.