March 18, 2010
 
Federal Judge Rules Student’s Criticism of Teacher Protected Speech Not Cyber Bullying
 
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
 
Huntington, WV (HNN) – A finding by a Miami, Florida, federal judge scored a victory for a high school student suspended for a Facebook page that criticized a teacher. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Garber’s ruling prevents dismissal of the student’s case against a school principal.
 
Katherine Evans had at age 17 been suspended from Pembroke Pines Charter High School after she created a “Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I ever had” Facebook page on her home computer.
 
The teen asked for current and former students to express their feelings of “hatred.”
 
Magistrate Judge Garber’s ruling classified the page as protected speech: “It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus ... was not lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior.”
 
Although she voluntarily removed the page, the then student was suspended from school and kicked out of Advanced Placement classes. The principal called her behavior disruptive cyber bullying of a school staff member.
 
ACLU Attorney Matthew Bavaro represents the now nineteen year old woman who asked the court to remove all records of her punishment from her school file.
 
Ryan Calo, an attorney for Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, told CNN, "Internet users and students that they can still speak their mind. It’s not a security issue. It’s personal opinion and gossip."
 
Calo believes high-profile campus shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech have made schools more security conscious. But in this case, the federal court has made an early, critical ruling that principal violated the student’s rights. The ruling trumps the principal’s immunity from suit claim and/or that the student’s page did not qualify for First Amendment protections.
 
The ruling reaffirms a balancing test must be examined in determining whether expression is dangerous and disruptive or merely expressing a critical and dissenting opinion.