Schools that dish out draconian punishments to students who are mean to each other online (aka cyberbullying) risk running afoul of the First Amendment.
Beverly Vista School, a K-8 school in the Beverly Hills Unified School District, learned this lesson via a November 2009 court ruling, where the federal district court for the Central District of California found that administrators at Beverly Vista had likely violated the First Amendment rights of a middle school student referred to in the records as J.C.
The facts in this case arose when J.C., an eighth grade girl, videotaped a group of her friends “talkin’ smack” about their classmate C.C. The video featured this group of kids saying that C.C. was spoiled, and a slut. J.C. then when home and uploaded the video to YouTube, and informed several classmates, including C.C., of the video’s existence.
The next day, C.C. and her mother informed the school of the video’s existence. C.C. also met with a school counselor for no more than half a class period to discuss how she felt humiliated by the video.
School administrators, upon viewing the video, called J.C. out of class, and made her write a statement about the video. The administrators also demanded that J.C. delete the video from YouTube. Upon consultation with the school district’s lawyer, the principal suspended J.C. for two days.
J.C. sued the school district, arguing that the school had violated her First Amendment rights and did not have the authority to discipline her over a video made and viewed off campus.
The court characterized the issue in this case as “whether a school can regulate student speech or expression that occurs outside the school gates, and is not connected to a school-sponsored event, but that subsequently makes its way onto campus, either by the speaker or by other means.”
In other words, could the school discipline J.C. for her online speech created outside of school using her own computer and Internet connection?
The court found that while it was reasonably foreseeable that the video, posted on a public website, would be accessed on school grounds, the video did not cause a substantial or material disruption sufficient to justify the school’s suspension of J.C.
This means that while in theory Beverly Vista has the authority to punish students over an online video shared off-campus, in actuality J.C.’s particular example of online off-campus expression was simply not extreme enough to justify the school’s disciplinary actions.
In making this finding, the J.C. court relied on the Supreme Court’s holding in the 1969 case of Tinker v. Des Moines where the Court upheld students’ right to free expression in instances where that expression failed to “materially and substantially disrupt[] the work and discipline of the school.”
Here, the court found that under the standards set forth in Tinker and subsequent cases in lower courts, J.C.’s video had not caused a disruption substantial enough to merit the school’s decision to suspend her.
As the court explained, “the word ‘substantial’ must equate to something more than the ordinary personality conflicts among middle school students that may leave one student feeling hurt or insecure.”
While J.C.’s video had been mean, and had hurt classmate C.C.’s feelings, the video did not represent speech extraordinary in the middle school social context.
The court, in finding for J.C., concluded that,
The Court does not take issue with Defendants’ argument that young students often say hurtful things to each other, and that students with limited maturity may have emotional conflicts over even minor comments. However, to allow the School to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul of Tinker.
J.C.’s win affirms our position that peer-on-peer cyberbullying is an issue that is best dealt with through education and not punishment. As J.C.’s lawsuit demonstrates, when schools attempt to punish this form of cyberbullying, students’ rights of free expression are compromised.
For more information on this case:
Blogging Censorship 
Students do indeed have the right to free speech, but in today’s sue-happy world, people are willing to find ways to get money over the littelest things. Kids will make fun of other kids, and you just can’t sue someone over it.
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Overall I agree with NCA’ position. However, students get into trouble at school for physical fights outside of school, which does not necessarily disrupt school activities.
About a yr ago, some kids created a facebook group saying my brother should be put down like a dog because he plays video games a lot. First of all, how absurd? Second off all, that situation scared me because I did not know the kids who created the group. And I would have been relieved to hear they had been suspended or punished somehow. This was potentially a threat against my brother’s life, though, compared to nasty name-calling.
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Too many school districts act on events outside their educational mandate and jurisdiction. Never ceases to amaze me how a district will punish a student for things which occur outside the school walls while concurrently making excuses for the same things which occur inside the same school walls.
As for cyber bullying, education does help but too many kids need a dose of medicine to help the sugar go down.
I can’t believe people are using the First Amendment to get out of trouble! The school should not have the right to punish someone outside their responsibilities, but you should not be able to sue someone after being treated for a crime and use the First Amendment as a pathetic excuse.
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I think that this girl should have been punished along with all her friends. When people see other kids getting away with this it leaves the door open to more trouble. I have a child who is a victim of this and it is very hurtful to see that there are no actions being taken. As many kids have even committed suicide because of such things. I dont know if anyone remembers what highschool was like but it feels like it will be the end of the world if someone doesnt like you or you get picked on or dumped by your boyfriend. Look at all the school shootings as a result of being bullied. Those kids probably felt like no one gave a crap because they had no one to defend them. Parents dont always get to know what is going on in school and even if they do what good is it if the school cant do anything? especially since it says that the girl notified many people including c.c that the video was there. Obviously this would affect learning abilities and the dynamics at school. I think that this should be a more serious consequence depending on the nature of the crime.
A simple fact, 100% of all school shooters were victims of bullying. It always starts small, but if schools do not do anything to address the problem then the potential for escalation exists. I agree that punishment is not the answer! Counseling for both the victim and the bully is.
Perhaps if Beverly Hills had not acted so quickly, but let the issue foment into a major disruption, say a fight, the court would have not sided with the bully.
In other states bullies are not granted first amendment rights to victimize their peers, and I am sure California will eventually follow suit.