Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
KSL Nightside's Chelsea Hedquist reportingStudents have always scribbled nasty things in their notebooks, but in the Internet age, the blog and Myspace page are replacing the notebook, and getting some kids into big trouble.
"A student put on a website kind of a harsh parody of the administrators, of the principal and faculty," noted ACLU of Utah Executive Director Dani Eyer.
That student, Ian Lake from Milford High School in Beaver County, had his computer seized, and he was thrown into a youth detention center for seven days. That was a few years ago, but more recently a student in Indiana was expelled for making sexually explicit comments about a teacher on Myspace. And a Texas cheereader was kicked off the squad for comments that showed up on her blog.
"In the school setting, the general rule is that students do not leave their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse doors," said Eyer.
But there is some area where free speech does not apply, according to University of Utah law professor Wayne McCormack. "The First Amendment does not protect against violence, obscenity or defamation," he said.
But sometimes, the concern for school safety outweighs even the right to free speech, in the mind of administrators. "It's a fine line and it's a difficult judgment that school administrators have to make," said Eyer.
Schools, like those in the Salt Lake School District, can regulate students' online activity while they're on school grounds. "We block blogging sites, personal sites - like MySpace or Tagged," said district spokesman Jason Olsen.
But many students are getting into trouble for online activities that happen in the privacy of their homes. Until schools figure out how to strike a balance between safety and safekeeping the First Amendment, the free-speech debate will likely continue.
