Court ruling backs student discipline for off-campus e-threats
By Kimberly Beltran
Thursday, September 19, 2013
In a ruling that, for the first time, provides specific guidance to school administrators addressing issues such as cyberbullying and threats via technology, a federal court has determined that school officials can discipline students for certain off-campus electronic communications.
The case involved a high school student in western Nevada’s Douglas County who made repeated threats via his MySpace page to carry out multiple violent acts, including going on a school shooting spree. After the student was suspended and then expelled, his family sued the school district, claiming that the statements were a joke and that the district had violated his First Amendment rights by disciplining him for speech made off-campus.
But in affirming a district court’s earlier judgment in favor of the district, Ninth Circuit Court Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote, “[This] panel held that the messages, which threatened the safety of the school and its students, both interfered with the rights of other students and made it reasonable for school officials to forecast a substantial disruption of school activities.
“The panel held that when faced with an identifiable threat of school violence, schools may take disciplinary action in response to off-campus speech that meets the requirements of Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969),” McKeown opined. “Under the circumstances, the panel concluded that the school district did not
