Justices Decline Doninger Internet Speech Case

This from the School Law blog:

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a case involving school punishment of a student for Internet speech critical of school administrators. However, two other appeals raising similar student free-speech issues are pending before the justices.

The high court on Monday turned away the appeal of Avery Doninger, who, as a Connecticut high school junior in 2007, had criticized school officials in her Web journal. After a dispute with officials at her high school in Burlington, Conn., over the scheduling of a band contest, Doninger referred to administrators as "douchebags" and encouraged her readers to email the superintendent "to piss her off more."

School officials, citing disruption by the emails and Doninger's Web comments, barred her from running for senior class secretary, but she wasn't suspended. Doninger and some of her fellow students were also later barred from wearing T-shirts at a school assemby that said "Support LSM Freedom of Speech," referring to Lewis S. Mills High School.
Doninger and her mother sought an injunction barring her discipline, but a district court and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, which included then-Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor, ruled against her.

The student continued to press her claims for damages under the First Amendment's free-speech clause. She lost in 2009 in federal district court, which granted qualified immunity to the school officials who disciplined her.

In an April decision, another 2nd Circuit court panel agreed that administrators were immune from the suit...

Quick Hits

KEA Campaigns To Avoid Cuts In Public Education: As Kentucky legislators prepare to meet on Tuesday, a media campaign is kicking off by the Kentucky Education Association asking lawmakers not to make deep cuts in public education. (KyPost.com)

First Lady rallies U.S. Education Department: First Lady Michelle Obama visited the U.S. Education Department Monday to thank employees for their work and say there is still more work ahead to turn around many of the country's struggling schools. "The Department of Education is going to be at the forefront of many of the things that we have to do in this administration and we're going to need that energy in these times of economic challenge," Obama said. (The Washington Post)

J. Graham Brown Foundation grant to fund parent leadership institute with a STEM focus: A $275,000 grant from the James Graham Brown Foundation to the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence will fund creation and implementation over two years of the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. (Prichard Committee)

Draud's new job - recovery: Jon Draud was eager to get started as Kentucky's education commissioner when he was hired in November 2007. Having been a school superintendent and state legislator, he felt he brought a unique combination of experience that would help improve public school education. But less than 10 months later, life got in the way....Draud will spend his free time reading and may eventually go back to teaching. He said Thursday that he's considering a run for Kenton County judge-executive. (Enquirer)

Vermont commissioner aims to prepare students for 21st century: Armando Vilaseca, Vermont's new schools commissioner, became interested in education as a high school senior participating in an innovative New Jersey teaching program, and he hopes to create similar opportunities for Vermont's students. "To me what I lived through is exactly what I believe that we as an education community need to be doing ... providing kids with relevancy in their schooling," he said. "America's education system -- including the system in Vermont -- is simply not adapting quickly enough to what has become a knowledge-based economy, nor is it keeping pace with continuing technological advances or the societal shifts of a growing, global economy." (The Times Argus)

Texas parents face fines for children's truancy: The Dallas and Fort Worth school districts together brought more than 1,800 parents to court in 2008 for "contributing to truancy," a misdemeanor that can carry a fine of up to $500 a day, according to district information reported to the Texas education department. "It's critical that the parent is a part of [the process]; otherwise, it makes no impact on the child," said Robyn Winnett, director of Fort Worth's truancy-intervention initiative. "You've got to do more than drop them off at school. Maybe you should walk them into the school." (The Dallas Morning News)

Study examines correlation between SAT scores and lead levels: The rise and fall in average SAT scores from 1953 to 2003 may be tied to the levels of lead found in the blood of U.S. children, according to a study to be published this winter. Some 45% of the variation in the average verbal scores and 65% of the variation in math scores may be due to lead, said researcher Rick Nevin, an economist. Drops in lead levels were also tied to declines in intellectual disabilities, Nevin found. (USA Today)

Teachers engage students by building relationships: More Michigan school districts are placing emphasis on establishing personal connections with students, believing that if students know their teacher cares about them, they will work harder to avoid disappointing their teacher. Educators have been trained in the "Capturing Kids' Hearts" program, which includes signing a social contract, sharing happy news before each class and high-fiving or sharing inspirational messages as students exit the classroom. (The Grand Rapids Press)

Teacher uses water balloons, pizza to prepare students for algebra: A California teacher is showing his students that algebra can be fun by having them use math to compete in water balloon fights, sing songs and divide pizza into triangles. Steve Norton's students say his visual, hands-on methods -- known as a "constructionist" approach -- are helping them learn. (North County Times)

Georgia bill would extend vouchers to all public school students: Georgia parents could get about $5,000 each for private-school tuition under a bill introduced Monday in the state Senate that was decried by some lawmakers. Supporters say the bill would force public schools to improve; critics say vouchers would exacerbate the state's inadequate funding of its public schools. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Perspectives/All Teachers Can Learn: "If teachers aren't raising test scores sufficiently, reformers say they should be weeded out," says ASCD book author Robyn Jackson. "The same people believe that 'All students can learn.' Why don't they start believing that 'all teachers can learn'?" Jackson examines the many ways that educators can improve their practice and refresh their mind-set, starting with the idea of embracing professional learning communities. (Educational Leadership)

Proposed grants would allow Duncan to reward ambitious states: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's plans to improve schools may include a discretionary $15 billion incentive-grant fund that would be used, in part, for states and districts that set high educational standards. "This is absolutely a historic opportunity to reward excellence," Duncan said. "We want to reward rigor and challenge the status quo." (Education Week - subscription)

Former teacher introduces bill to protect students' rights: A judge's ruling last month that permitted school administrators to discipline a student for a non-threatening blog post has inspired a former teacher turned lawmaker to introduce a bill he says would protect students' right to free speech. "This is like saying you can't write on a piece of paper and distribute that piece of paper outside the school," said Connecticut state Sen. Gary LeBeau, who used to teach civics. "I'm really disappointed in the courts." (The Hartford Courant)

Study: Students must learn scientific-reasoning skills: College freshmen in China know more about science than their U.S. counterparts, but neither group is particularly good at scientific reasoning, according to a new study of more than 6,000 students at seven universities, published in the journal Science. "Even when students are rigorously taught the facts, they don't necessarily develop the reasoning skills they need to succeed," said lead author Lei Bao, an Ohio State University associate physics professor. "Because students need both knowledge and reasoning, we need to explore teaching methods that target both." (ScienceDaily)

Indiana bill could avert frivolous lawsuits questioning teachers' decisions: Special educator Angela Williams' students increasingly threaten to sue when she attempts to control disruptive students. That's sort of issue has prompted some Indiana lawmakers to introduce a bill that would give teachers qualified immunity as long as they act reasonably to keep order in their classrooms. (Chicago Tribune)

Duncan: Education aid could revitalize country's work force: Some $141 billion for schools and colleges presents "an extraordinary opportunity" to dramatically improve U.S. schools by more fully funding Title I and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, said new U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "This is righting a historical injustice, a historical wrong," he said. "These have been desperately underfunded, in some cases for decades." (USA Today)

Technology alters students' learning: Computers, video games and multitasking may have helped improve people's visual skills, but they also appear to have contributed to an erosion in critical-thinking and analysis skills, according to new research published in the journal Science. Reading, however, develops the imagination as well as deductive, reflection and critical-thinking stills, said researcher and UCLA psychology professor Patricia Greenfield, who also directs the Children's Digital Media Center of Los Angeles. "No one medium is good for everything," she said. "If we want to develop a variety of skills, we need a balanced media diet." (ScienceDaily)

High School Blogger Loses Case

Back in June, Avery Doninger - stripped of her class office and forbidden from speaking at graduation - shook hands with her principal Karissa Niehoff, and walked off the stage a Lewis Mills High School graduate.

Everyone smiled. Doninger's head was held high.

This from the Hartford Curant; Photo by Bob MacDonell:

Internet Free Speech Ruling

Favors Burlington School Administrators

In a key ruling on Internet free speech, a federal judge has found that school officials were within their rights when they disciplined a Burlington high school student over an insulting blog post she wrote off school grounds.

Avery Doninger's case has drawn national attention and raised questions about how far schools' power to regulate student speech extends in the Internet age.

Connecticut legal blog, Crime and Federalism, reprinted a Connecticut Law Tribune report from Burlington. Reportedly, the Burlington students organized an annual music festival called the Battle of the Bands.

"They wanted to use the brand-spanking new high school auditorium, but to do so required a technician approved by the school board. The technician was unavailable the day the festival was to be held, thus throwing the date of the event into question."

Avery Doninger, a junior student council member and class secretary, tried to meet with the school administrators to salvage the date for the festival.

It was reported elsewhere that,

The administrators never told her that the show was canceled. She was aware prior to blogging that they were considering postponing it again, but that it would go ahead at some point. She acknowledged that during the school day and she was asked not to get students riled up, because they were working on a solution. She agreed.

Despite that, she chose to represent their position as having canceled the show, which is a strike in my book, and not only called them douchebags, but also asked more students to write to the administrators to "piss them off".

She sent an e-mail to parents and others urging them to contact the school to demand that the festival take place as scheduled.

The principal, Karissa Niehoff, and superintendent, Paula Schwartz, were reportedly not amused. Doninger then went to a private web site and from a home computer wrote a blog entry calling the folks in the school's central office douchebags, and urging more folks to call or write to "piss [the school superintendent] off even more."

This came to the school's attention and as a consequence, she was forbidden to run for reelection to class office. Her fellow students voted for her as a write-in candidate anyway, and she won by a plurality. School officials refused to seat her in office.

The Courant reported,

But in a ruling on several motions for summary judgment Thursday, U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz rejected Doninger's claims that administrators at Lewis S. Mills High School violated her rights to free speech and equal protection and intentionally inflicted emotional distress when they barred her from serving as class secretary because of an Internet post she wrote at home.

Kravitz's ruling relied in part on the ambiguity over whether schools can regulate students' expression on the Internet. He noted that times have changed significantly since 1979, when a landmark student speech case set boundaries for schools regulating off-campus speech.

KSN&C Backstory.

Student blogger plans libel lawsuit

This from the Boston Globe; Backstory from KSN&C:

BURLINGTON, Conn.—An attorney for a high school student who brought a free speech lawsuit against her school district last year said he now plans to file a libel lawsuit against the principal.

Jon Schoenhorn, a Hartford attorney representing Avery Doninger, said he has served notice to Lewis S. Mills High School Principal Karissa Niehoff of the impending lawsuit.

Doninger and her family have been at odds with the district since last year, when Doninger used offensive slang to refer to administrators on an Internet blog. School officials removed her as class secretary, which Doninger said was a violation of her constitutional rights.

The case went as far as the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York as Doninger sought an injunction to regain her spot as class secretary and speak at her class graduation in June. The court rejected that request, but her lawsuit is pending.

The threat of a new libel lawsuit stems from an e-mail exchange that Niehoff had with a Wisconsin man who read about the legal case in the New York Post.

School administrators said Niehoff improperly disclosed information about Doninger in the exchange, which the man forwarded to Doninger's family. Niehoff was suspended for two days without pay for the incident.

Schoenhorn said Thursday that Niehoff will be sued for libel "for the false things she said to people about Avery."

A formal lawsuit has yet to be filed, and Schoenhorn declined to give details about when and where the suit might be filed.

Niehoff's attorney, Christine Chinni, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

Doninger's mother, Lauren, said Niehoff was punished for making a comment and distributing it on the Internet, the same reason cited for the punishment of her daughter, she said.

"It's not a decision we made lightly," she said. "The irony is too overwhelming that Avery, at 16, made some ill-considered remarks and sent them into cyberspace, and she was punished relentlessly. The principal effectively does the same thing. Does she expect no consequences?"

Connecticut Court Looks At Student Speech on the Internet

This from the Hartford Courant:

NEW YORK — - The dispute over a Burlington, Conn., teenager's Internet journal gave rise on Tuesday to a wide-ranging and contentious federal court hearing about free speech, whether schools can regulate students' language off campus and how the Internet blurs the boundaries of a school campus.

Avery Doninger, the 17-year-old high school senior at the center of the case, sat in the front row as a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals lobbed questions at the attorneys. Lawyers for both sides described the hearing as uncharacteristically lengthy and suggested that the duration underscored the case's position in new legal territory.

In simplest terms, the hearing Tuesday addressed whether Doninger should be allowed to serve as senior class secretary at Lewis S. Mills High School and, as a class officer, speak at her graduation.

The principal had barred Doninger from serving on the student council because of derogatory comments she made about school officials in an Internet blog...

...The appeals court did not rule Tuesday, but the judges raised questions ranging from the specifics of the high school's student council election procedures to how the Internet changes students' rights to free speech.

The attorneys staked out opposite positions on the free-speech question.

Asked whether schools should be allowed to regulate anything students write on the Internet, Doninger's attorney, Jon L. Schoenhorn, argued that the Internet should not give schools more cause to regulate off-campus speech. "It's just a bigger soapbox," he said.

The school officials' attorney, Thomas R. Gerarde, argued that the Internet has fundamentally changed students' ability to communicate, allowing them to reach hundreds of people at a time. If a student leader makes offensive comments about the school on the Internet, the school should have the right to act, said Gerarde, who represents Mills Principal Karissa Niehoff and former Region 10 Superintendent Paula Schwartz. "We shouldn't be required to just swallow it," he said.

Doninger's case began with a dispute about the school's annual Jamfest, a battle-of-the-bands-type program that Doninger had helped coordinate. Frustrated that Jamfest was not going ahead as scheduled, Doninger wrote on her livejournal.com weblog that "Jamfest is canceled due to the douchbags [sic] in central office." She also encouraged others to write or call Schwartz "to piss her off more," and included an e-mail her mother wrote as an example.

In fact, Jamfest wasn't canceled and was rescheduled.

After administrators found the blog entry, about two weeks after Doninger wrote it, Niehoff told Doninger to apologize to Schwartz, show her mother the blog entry and remove herself from seeking re-election as class secretary.Doninger agreed to the first two, but refused to withdraw her candidacy. Administrators did not allow her to run, though enough students wrote her name on the ballot that she won. She was not allowed to serve.

In his August ruling, Kravitz suggested that while Doninger wrote her blog entry off school grounds, she could be punished for it because the blog addressed school issues and was likely to be read by other students.The issue of on-campus and off-campus speech was a key theme Tuesday as attorneys and judges grappled with how the existing legal framework for school-speech issues applies to the Internet.

Student-speech issues have long been governed by a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case. It established that disruptive conduct by students is not constitutionally protected, but that schools can prohibit expression only if they can show that not doing so would interfere with schoolwork or discipline.

A 1986 Supreme Court ruling added another cause for schools to regulate speech, allowing them to prohibit "vulgar and lewd" speech if it would undermine the school's basic educational mission. But those cases involved speech that took place on school grounds or during a school activity.

Much of the discussion Tuesday involved another 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals case, Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District in New York. A student was suspended after he created an instant-messaging icon, visible to
his friends, that suggested his English teacher should be shot. The court upheld the suspension last year, saying it was reasonable to expect that the icon would come to the attention of school authorities and could create a risk of substantial disruption to the school environment...

Student's blog refers to school administrators as "douchbags!" Looks like somebody needs a spelling lesson.

AVERY DONINGER, 16, poses with her mother, Lauren Doninger, outside the law offices of attorney Jon Schoenhorn on Monday. The Doningers are suing Lewis S. Mills High School Principal Karissa Niehoff and Superintendent of Schools Paula Schwartz. Photo by TIA ANN CHAPMAN, July 16, 2007.

The US Supreme Court recently ruled that a sign that read, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was not protected student speech because the banner's message could be interpreted as promoting drug use. Now, comes a student whose case asserts she should be able to call her school administrators douche bags...or something like that.

Will the defense claim that such speech is not protected because it could be interpreted as promoting...feminine hygiene?

This from the Courant (Connecticut).

Free Speech Suit Filed

Student's Blog Entry At Issue

A Lewis S. Mills High School student who was barred from running for class office after she called administrators a derogatory term on an Internet blog is accusing top school officials of violating her free speech rights.

Avery Doninger, a senior at the school in Burlington this fall, was removed as class secretary in the controversy last May. She is asking a state judge to order the school superintendent and the principal to reinstate her as secretary of the Class of 2008 and allow her to run for re-election in September.Lauren Doninger of Burlington, the 16-year-old student's mother, filed a lawsuit Monday on her daughter's behalf in Superior Court in New Britain.

The case highlights the tension between a school's need to maintain discipline and the rights of students to free expression.It comes in the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month concerning an Alaska student who hung a banner that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" during a school-related rally. The 5-4 decision put tighter limits on students' free speech. The justices ruled against that teenager because the banner's message could be interpreted as promoting drug use.

In the Lewis Mills student's case, according to Doninger's lawyer, Jon L. Schoenhorn, the student had a right to express her opinion in a public forum outside of school-sponsored activities. He cited a ruling from the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over federal appeals in Connecticut, New York and Vermont, that prevented school administrators from punishing students for expression that took place off school grounds.

~

Will this come to be known as the douche bag case?