Jen Teitle–wife and fellow occasional blogger–pointed me toward the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website. They are “lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists” who work for the public interest in matters related to the Internet and free speech. They have a lot of materials worth clicking around for, but most interesting for AP Lang is their FAQ sheet about student bloggers’ legal rights, based on legal precedents. I highly recommend that you all review the page in the next couple of weeks. Here’s a sample:
EFF believes that public schools have no right to punish or censor any speech activities conducted outside of the school gates, and the Supreme Court has yet to consider such off-campus censorship. However, some lower courts have applied the Tinker ”material disruption” standard in cases concerning the personal web sites of high school and middle school students. For example, in Beussink v. Woodland School District, 30 F. Supp.2d 1175 (E.D. Mo. 1998), a federal court applied Tinker’s “material disruption” standard when considering a student’s web site that used vulgar language to criticize his public school and its teachers and administrators. Even though the site was created on the student’s own time, with his own computer and Internet connection, the court decided that the Tinker ”material disruption” test applied since a classmate viewed the site at school. While it is unfortunate that the court applied the less protective standard, in the end the student was vindicated — since there was no material disruption, the court decided that the student’s First Amendment rights were violated.
