Students’ freedom of speech not always clear cut
BY OLIVIA SOUTULLO Special to the News GBHS student

Students’ freedom of speech had been controversial since the epic case of Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969, in which three students were suspended for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. The case was taken to the Supreme Court where freedom of expression prevailed and the precedence had been set as such ever since.

Fast forward to the Information Age.

Students now have faster access to more data than ever before and an amazingly unique opportunity to express themselves via the Internet. There are countless websites open that cater to teenagers such as Livejournal, Myspace and other blogging networks.

How does the school play into this computer-student relationship? What role should it assume in protecting its students and teachers? Often it seems there is no black and white concerning these matters but rather only a foreboding and ambiguous gray.

Many students are unsure of what they are legally allowed to say and can be held accountable for online. The rules regarding school Internet usage vary from school to school; Gulf Breeze’s are outlined in the Student Code of Conduct handbook. The expressly stated rules, however, leave much room for interpretation on a caseby case basis.

The handbook states in its extensive Internet guidelines that students should have “no expectation of privacy,” to which GBHS Dean Danny Brothers agreed, adding, “Anything derogatory towards GBHS students, the school, or its employees may be deemed inappropriate if it’s mentioned.”

Brothers also said students are held accountable for actions on school property or if they are caught breaking school rules. Infractions include anything otherwise illegal such as underage drinking or drug use.

These warnings from Brothers would seem to exclude any free speech criticizing school officials or policies. However, previous court rulings emphasized that if the website is made and accessed through offcampus computers and printed materials are not distributed within the school, jurisdiction rests off-campus as well.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legal director Raymond Vasvari was quoted in The Silencing of Student Voices on the subject: “There is no U.S. Supreme Court precedent for the principle that students enjoy diminished First Amendment rights when they are off-campus simply by virtue of being young.”

In 1999 a student in Washington made a website parody of that depicted his principal drinking, vandalizing a wall and participating in Nazi activities. The student was immediately expelled.

The case was brought to court in 2000 and they ruled that school officials had, in fact, violated the student’s First Amendment rights because it was not made on school ground and did not bring about “significant disruption.”

What is the difference between a harmless joke and malicious slander or libel? Slander and libel differ in that slander refers to only verbal defamation whereas libel points to defamation within written works.

Slander is only a civil offense. However, libel may be tried as a civil suit or as a criminal offense, depending on the circumstances. This makes written defamation, which applies to most Internet speech, much more powerful and susceptible to more dire consequences than slander.

Earlier this year, several students at a San Antonio High School were sued by Assistant Principal Ann Draker for making a Myspace account in her name with false information, according to USA Today.

The site inaccurately listed Draker as a lesbian and included many obscenities. Both offenses constituted a defamation of character, a tort defined as the publication of a statement that is known to be false which begets him or her grief. One student from this case is facing a thirddegree

felony charge because of the incident. In any event, school officials must determine whether the material in question affects the school environment.

This distinction is often left up to administrators whose only must be that the subversive material causes a noticeable disturbance within the school. Administrators are left with tough decisions regarding what to allow and what to censor as they attempt to preserve a delicate balance.

The safety of students is, of course, the primary issue in any school, and the administrations try to ensure just that. However, freedom of expression and speech could suffer at the expense of order and discipline.

Most Internet filtering programs on school computers fail to differentiate an elementary school student from a high school student, often blocking content that would not be inappropriate for an older teen to view.

Many high-schoolers have thus become adept at circumventing the blocking programs, which often restrict otherwise sound material along with clearly inappropriate pornographic or obscene publications.

Regardless, students should be wary of attaching their names to any publications, Internet or otherwise, that could negatively affect their future. This includes pictures and written comments as well as critical or possibly offensive speech that could create a disturbance to the learning environment.

At Gulf Breeze High, the punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis.

“Kids need to be careful of pictures and careful of verbal remarks, especially athletes and shoe in clubs which require a special code of conduct,” Vice Principal Donlan said. If a student violates a code of an extracurricular activity, he or she may be removed from said activity.

Court cases and consequences behind, students at Gulf Breeze High are cautioned to uphold the standards of decency presented by the school and teachers and to voice complaints in an appropriate fashion.