VIII. Extending the Arm of School Authority Beyond the Schoolhouse Gate: Student Discipline for Off-Campus Speech in the New Digital Era

    “Today, students are connected to each other through email, instant messaging, blogs, social networking     sites, and text messages. An email can be sent to dozens or hundreds of other students by hitting     ‘send.’ A blog entry posted on a site such as livejournal.com can be instantaneously viewed by students,     teachers, and administrators alike.     Off-campus speech can become on-campus speech with the click of a     mouse.”236

    What’s a parent to do? Students today are equipped with electronic devices that keep them in immediate and continuous contact with fellow students. It is virtually impossible to control (or even monitor) the content of outgoing texts, tweets, IM’s, and emails, and absolutely impossible to censor the content of incoming messages. As a result, “the line between on-campus and off-campus speech is blurred”237 as are the “outer bounds of administrators’ authority to punish student speech . . . .”238 While there are fewer “bright lines” there are things parents should know if their child’s off-campus use of social media (as is becoming increasingly frequent) forms the subject of student discipline. There is also recent judicial guidance available as to what to tell your child about potential school discipline related cyberspace pitfalls that must be avoided. The purpose of this chapter is to make parents at least as well-informed as school administrators in the area of permissible student discipline for off-campus, social-networking speech. 

Where We Came From

    Prior law with respect to students’ First Amendment rights used to be relatively wellsettled and fairly predictable. Students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”239 The constitutional rights of public school students, however, “are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.”240 In Tinker, the United States Supreme Court said that student rights must be applied in a manner consistent with the “special characteristics of the school environment,” and that school administrators may prohibit student expression that will “materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.”241 Because schools are responsible for “teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior,”242 otherwise constitutionally protected but offensive speech by an adult may when uttered by a student, give rise to disciplinary action by a school. Educators are also permitted to exercise editorial control over “school-sponsored expressive activities such as school publications or theatrical productions.”243 Most recently, the Supreme Court has allowed public school administrators to “take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use.”244
    The Tinker, Fraser, Hazelwood trilogy of cases was once thought to provide parents and teachers with a viable and stable framework for reconciling student rights of free speech with educators’ rights to maintain good order and discipline. Maybe in 1988, but no more. 

Where We Are Now

    A recent Federal Court case from Connecticut has shone a spotlight on the difficulty of trying to extrapolate existing law onto the realities of student access to and use of social media.  The case began as Doninger v. Niehoff, 514 F. Supp. 2d 199 (D. Conn. 2007) (“Doninger I”) and has a torturous procedural and checkered appellate history. Doninger I was affirmed by Doninger v. Niehoff, 527 F. 3d 41 (2d Cir. 2008) (“Doninger II”). The case was continued, seeking monetary relief, Doninger v. Niehoff, 594 F. Supp 2d 211 (D. Conn. 2009) (“Doninger III”). On appeal, Doninger III was affirmed in part and reversed in part by Doninger v. Niehoff, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 8441 (2d Cir. Apr. 25, 2011)(“Doninger IV”). The most important aspect of this serpentine procedural and appellate route is that Doninger arose out of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut and has made two trips to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Thus, to the extent the Second Circuit has ruled on issues of law in Doninger II and IV, such precedent is binding on the Connecticut Federal Court and likely to receive highly deferential treatment from the Connecticut State Courts. It also illustrates how the availability and use of social media can cause a simmering dispute between students and educators to rapidly metastasize into an all-out war. For those reasons, alone, it deserves our close inspection.

Doninger I

    In 2007, Avery Doninger (“Avery”) was a junior at Lewis Mills High School in Burlington, Connecticut. She served on the Student Council and was also the Junior Class Secretary. A dispute arose between the school administration and certain Student Council members (including Avery) over the scheduling of an annual battle-of-the-bands concert called “Jamfest.” The concert had been twice postponed because of delays in the opening of the school’s new auditorium. It had been rescheduled for April 28, 2007, in the newly constructed venue. Shortly before the event, however, Avery and her fellow students learned that the teacher responsible for operating the auditorium’s sound and lighting equipment would not be able to attend on that date. At an April 24th Student Council meeting, the students were told that it would not be possible to hold Jamfest in the auditorium without the absent teacher, so that either the date or location of the event would have to be changed. The school proposed as an alternative venue the school cafeteria, limited to acoustic (as opposed to electric) instruments. The Student Council found this unacceptable.
    Four Student Council members, including Avery, decided to alert the larger community to the Jamfest situation and enlist their help in convincing school officials to allow Jamfest to take place in the auditorium as scheduled. The four students met in the school computer lab and drafted an email message to be sent to a large number of addressees. The email essentially recounted the pertinent facts and requested recipients to contact the School District Superintendent to urge that Jamfest be held as and where scheduled, and to forward the message “to as many people as you can.” All four students signed and sent the email. As expected, the school and District received an influx of calls and emails expressing concern about Jamfest. The school Principal and Avery spoke later the same day where Avery was told that the Principal was amenable to rescheduling Jamfest so that it could be held in the new auditorium. According to the Principal, Avery agreed to send out a corrective email. Avery disputed the Principal’s version of their conversation.
    That night, Avery posted a message on her publicly accessible blog that was hosted by livejournal.com, a website unaffiliated with Lewis Mills High School. Avery’s blog stated that “jamfest is cancelled due to douchebags in central office” and that the District Superintendent “got pissed off and decided to just cancel the whole thing.” The blog concluded by suggesting that people write or call the Superintendent “to piss her off more.”
    The following day, school administrators (after having received still more phone calls and emails about Jamfest) met with the four Student Council members who sent the original email and agreed to reschedule Jamfest for June 8, 2007 (when it was actually and successfully held). Several days after the conciliatory meeting, school administrators first learned of Avery’s blog posting. Because of its vulgarity and misinformation, the Principal decided (as her only discipline) that Avery should be prohibited from running for Senior Class Secretary. Avery nevertheless won election as a write-in candidate and when the school refused to permit her to take office, Avery (through her mother as nominal plaintiff) filed suit seeking an injunction to force the school to hold new class secretary elections where Avery would be allowed to run. The District Court in Doninger I denied Avery’s request for an injunction and that decision was appealed to the Court of Appeals.

Doninger II

    The Second Circuit immediately noted that the United States Supreme Court had yet to speak on the issue of school authority to regulate expression that neither occurs on school grounds, nor at a school-sponsored event. The Court did, however, refer to one of its own decisions holding that a student may be disciplined for expressive conduct, even occurring off school grounds, when such conduct “would foreseeably create a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment,” at least to the extent it was similarly foreseeable that such offcampus expression might also reach campus.245 The Court of Appeals then assessed Avery’s First Amendment rights in the context of students’ expansive use of electronic communication.
    Had Avery’s electronic blog instead been posted as a handbill on school grounds, the case would fall squarely within the holding of Fraser. Therein, the Supreme Court held that a school may regulate “plainly offensive” speech, i.e., speech that is “offensively lewd and indecent.” The Second Circuit had no problem concluding that Avery’s posting contained the sort of language that, under Fraser, properly may be prohibited in the classroom. What the Court of Appeals did have a problem with, however, is whether Fraser (primarily relied upon by the Court, below) applied to off-campus speech, at all.     Instead, the Court applied to the facts an amalgam of Tinker and Wisniewski. The Court concluded that Avery’s blog “foreseeably create[d] a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment.” It based this conclusion on three factors: (a) the language used, (b) the false or misleading information, and (c) Avery’s role as a student government leader. The Court attached particular significance to Avery’s status as a student government leader in that her conduct not only disrupted efforts to resolve the Jamfest dispute, but it also frustrated the operation of the school’s student government, and undermined the values that student government, as an extracurricular activity is designed to promote. The Court in Doninger II did not opine as to whether a different, more serious consequence than disqualification from student office would raise issues of constitutional dimension. It ruled only that Avery’s First Amendment rights were not violated when she was disqualified from running for Senior Class Secretary. 

Doninger III

    Avery’s request for an injunction in Doninger I and II was rendered moot by her graduation from high school. She continued in Doninger III to continue to press her lawsuit for damages against school officials. The District Court found no reason to alter its previously stated position that Avery’s First Amendment rights were not violated when she was prohibited from running for class secretary because of an offensive blog entry that was clearly designed to come on to campus and influence fellow students. In addition, partially as a result of the decision in Doninger II, the Court concluded that participation in extracurricular activities, such as student government, is a privilege and not a right. 
    After all was said and done, the District Court found in favor of the defendant school officials under the legal principle of “qualified immunity” (a principle unrelated to and beyond the scope of this chapter on school discipline for off-campus conduct). Then it was off again to the Court of Appeals.

Doninger IV

    The Second Circuit in Doninger IV initially identified the issue as “the circumstances in which school administrators may discipline students for speech relating directly to the affairs of the school without running afoul of the First Amendment.” But then the Court refined the issue to be whether “the-defendant-school-administrators . . . are entitled to qualified immunity on the plaintiff-student’s claims that they violated her First Amendment rights . . . .” Prior to 2009, the Court would have been required to first determine whether Avery’s constitutional rights were violated, and then determine (for qualified immunity analysis) whether that right was “clearly established.” In Doninger IV, the Court inverted the usual order of inquiry, found the defendants entitled to qualified immunity, and chose not to decide the question of whether Avery’s First Amendment rights had been violated. What guidance the Court did provide on the core issue was: “it was objectively reasonable for school officials to conclude that [Avery’s] behavior was potentially disruptive of student government functions . . . and that [Avery] was not free to engage in such behavior while serving as a class representative . . . .”

What the Future Holds

    “[W]hen it comes to student cyber-speech, the lower courts are in complete disarray, handing down ad hoc     decisions that, even when they reach an instinctively correct conclusion, lack consistent, controlling legal     principles.”246

    The disjointed state of education law as it pertains to student discipline for off-campus speech was recently highlighted by two cases that arose in Pennsylvania. In each case, high school students were suspended after posting MySpace profiles of their respective principals, mocking them in lewd and salacious terms. Each of the student’s cases was heard by a different Federal District Judge sitting in different courthouses. In one case, the student’s suspension was upheld; in the other case, the Judge ruled in favor of the student. Each of the cases was independently appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, that hears appeals from Federal trial courts in Pennsylvania. The two separate three-judge panels (from within the same Circuit and applying the same law) issued conflicting decisions. That prompted the entire Third Circuit (consisting of 14 Federal appellate judges) to hear the cases anew, and in both cases find for the students.247 The focus of the Court’s decision appeared to be on the fact that one student’s speech, in particular, “did not cause a substantial disruption in the school.” This test differs from the Second Circuit test that requires only a “reasonable foreseeability of disruption in the school.” This sets the stage for the United States Supreme Court to hear a case that will allow it to resolve an apparent conflict between the Circuits. Until the Supreme Court speaks to the issue, parents and students will have to glean guidance from what the courts have said about imposing school discipline for off-campus speech. 

Technology: A Two-Edged Sword

    Parents and students should be aware that at least one company now exists that is capable of scouring the Internet for everything a person may have said or done online in the course of the last seven years. Despite initial concerns, the Federal Trade Commission has determined that the company’s activities are in compliance with the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Less than a third of the data developed by the company comes from major social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Much of the information comes from deep web searches that find comments on blogs and posts on smaller social sites, like Tumblr and even Craigslist. Photos posted to sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Yfrog, and Photobucket are also easily discoverable. The “terms of service” agreements on most sites make all comments and content publicly available.
    While such company presently researches candidates for employment, rather than students, its import for the future is clear: nothing said or done on the Internet is private. 

The Takeaway for Parents or Students

    Students retain their constitutional rights of freedom of speech or expression while in or out of school.
    BUT:
    i. School administrators may prohibit student expression that will materially and substantially disrupt the work and     discipline of the school.
    ii. Educators are permitted to exercise editorial control over school-sponsored expressive activities such as school     publications or theatrical productions.
    iii. Public school administrators may take steps to safeguard students from speech that can reasonably be regarded     as encouraging illegal drug use.
    iv. A student may be disciplined for expressive conduct occurring off school grounds when such conduct would     foreseeably create a risk of substantial disruption within the school environment, at least to the extent that it was     similarly foreseeable that such offcampus expression might also reach campus.
    v. A school may regulate in the classroom “plainly offensive” speech, i.e., speech that is offensively lewd and     indecent.
    vi. Off-campus, the risk from student speech of substantial disruption within the school environment depends on a     number of factors including the language used, the truth or falsity of the communication, and whether the student     serves as a student government leader.
    vii. Participation in extracurricular activities is a privilege and not a right.

    SO, STUDENTS SHOULD PRESUME:
    i. That any electronic communication (e.g., text, tweet, email) or creation (e.g., MySpace profile) that can be     forwarded beyond its initial addressee may be forwarded to parties unknown, or may be seen by teachers or school     administrators.
    ii. That any school-related electronic communication (i.e., one relating or referring to students, teachers,     administrators, or school activities) can be expected to find its way “on-campus.” Going forward, with respect to     electronic communications, students should presume no practical or legal difference between on and off-campus.     
    iii. What constitutes “substantial disruption within the school environment” depends entirely on the circumstances.     Virtually any deviation from the daily routine resulting from a student communication can be described as     “disruption” sufficient to support student discipline.

The Bottom Line

    Any off-campus electronic communication relating or referring to students, teachers, administrators, or school activities has the potential to result in student discipline. As of now, the unsettled status of the law affords school administrators wide latitude in deciding when a student communication can be reasonably seen to create a foreseeable risk of academic disruption. Exclusion from extracurricular activities is now a judicially accepted punishment. Other types of student discipline may in the future also be countenanced by the courts. In the meantime, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. 

        Please know that we at Maya Murphy stand ready to be of further service to you and your loved ones. My hope is this publication will narrow the divide between teachers, parents and children. If at any point there is something you don’t understand, call me. If there is a family that can use help, but can’t afford representation, let me know. We want to help every family, and importantly, every child. I can be reached via e-mail directly at JMaya@Mayalaw.com. You can also call my office at (203) 221-3100, or in New York at (212) 682-5700.