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?"