FLORIDA — A former South Florida high school student is suing to
challenge a three-day suspension that she incurred after creating an off-campus
Web site that criticized her English instructor as "the worst teacher I've
ever met" and invited others to post additional criticisms.
Katherine Evans, a former student at Pembroke Pines Charter High School in
Pembroke Pines, Fla., alleges that the November 2007 disciplinary action —
which also included removing her from Advanced Placement classes that carried
bonus grade-point-average weight — violated her First Amendment
rights.
Attorneys for Evans filed a
complaint Monday in the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of Florida, seeking a declaration that Principal Peter
Bayer violated her constitutional rights, along with an order directing the
school to purge all mention of the discipline from Evans' record, nominal
monetary damages and attorney fees.
The dispute stems from a page that Evans posted on Facebook, a
social-networking Web site, denouncing her AP English teacher for her
"insane antics" and inviting others to "express your feelings
of hatred" by posting messages to the site. According to the complaint
filed with the court, the Web site was up for only two days, over a weekend, and
was not seen by the teacher before Evans voluntarily pulled it down. The
Facebook site attracted only three posted comments, all of them supporting the
teacher and criticizing Evans.
Evans was disciplined on the grounds of violating Broward County school
board policies against "Bullying / Cyber bullying / Harassment towards a
staff member" and "Disruptive behavior," according to a copy
of her Notice of Suspension attached to the complaint.
The complaint contends that punishing Evans for purely off-campus speech
that created no disruption at school violated her right to free speech.
Attorneys Randall Marshall and Maria Kayanan of the American Civil Liberties
Union of Florida staff and outside legal counsel Matthew D. Bavaro filed the
complaint.
"Students cannot be punished for posting comments online from their
home computers criticizing their teachers. Absent a credible threat of harm,
criticism is protected by the First Amendment," Kayanan, associate
legal director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a news release.
A complaint represents merely the allegations of one side in a legal
dispute, and the other side is permitted to file an answer responding to the
allegations. Charles Dodge, superintendent of the Pembroke Pines charter school
system, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he was unaware of the
lawsuit and could not comment.
Student online speech is a prolific area of First Amendment litigation.
The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments
Wednesday in the case of Layshock v. Hermitage School District, in which
a Pennsylvania school district is appealing a lower court's ruling that
the district violated a student's First Amendment rights by suspending him
for posting sarcastic comments mocking his principal on a MySpace page.
By Frank LoMonte, SPLC staff writer
