Setback for the "First Amendment Freedom Fighter"
In denying a request for an injunction, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals seemed to signal defeat for Avery Donninger, the Connecticut high school student who was disciplined for referring to county school administrators as "douche bags." The Court ruled that Avery's comments could cause "substantial disruption." This horrible ruling, if it stands, could signal the end of student free speech, at least in the K-12 schools, and invites school authorities into the private homes of students and parents.
That's my opinion. What's yours? Here's the article:
Appeals Court Rules Against Burlington Student
By ARIELLE LEVIN BECKER | Courant Staff Writer
May 30, 2008
Ruling in a case that addresses broad questions of the boundaries of free speech in the Internet age, a federal appeals court on Thursday effectively ended a Burlington student's effort to serve as a class officer and speak at graduation.
The ruling by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York only addressed a preliminary issue in the case of Avery Doninger, a senior at Lewis S. Mills High School, who has argued that school district administrators violated her First Amendment rights by disciplining her for a blog post she wrote off school grounds.
But the court's ruling weighed in on a hotly contested and evolving area of the law, freedom of expression on the Internet. The three-judge panel stopped short of declaring how far schools can go in regulating offensive Internet speech made off campus, but stated that the school did not violate the Constitution in disciplining Doninger because her blog post "created a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption" at the school.
Thursday's ruling addressed a request by Doninger's attorney for an injunction to allow Doninger to serve as class secretary, which she was barred from doing because of the blog post. A federal district court judge rejected the request last year, finding that Doninger had not proven a substantial likelihood of challenging the constitutionality of her punishment. The appeals court agreed.
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