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