Over at Wired.com, there’s a story about a federal ruling that a high school student’s Facebook page, completed on her own time, outside of school, of conventional content, is protected speech.
It’s a good decision.
The score is 2-1 in favor of the First Amendment when it comes to three federal rulings this month on the limits of students’ online, off-campus speech.
The latest ruling, which supports the student, concerned a former Florida high senior who was reprimanded for “cyberbullying” a teacher on Facebook. Katherine Evans, now 20, was suspended two years ago after creating a Facebook group devoted to her English teacher.
The group was called “Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met!,” and featured a photograph of the teacher and an invitation for other students to “express your feelings of hatred.”
“It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus, did not cause any disruption on-campus, and was not “lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior,” Magistrate Barry Garber of Florida ruled Friday.
Note well: The story describes a federal case in Florida, and is neither binding nor predictive of how federal courts in other states, or even in Florida, might rule about other students’ pages. Federal law on this matter is not settled. Crummy teachers in other places might receive a more favorable hearing from a court.
The full story is available online.
By the way – Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher anyone has ever met.