Conflicting opinions complicate students' cases
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A federal appeals court Thursday issued what could be conflicting opinions on cases that involve students creating parody profiles on social networking sites.
In a case stemming from the Western District of Pennsylvania, a panel of judges from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Hickory High School student's parody of his principal was protected free speech.
But in a case out of the Middle District, a different three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled the opposite.
In the Hickory case, Justin Layshock created a MySpace profile of then-Hickory High School principal Eric Trosch in December 2005. Mr. Layshock filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Hermitage School District, claiming the administration had no say over the online parody and could not legally punish him for it.
The other case involves a middle school student who wrote a similar profile about her principal, but the court ruled differently.
"I think the big problem is school officials were hoping Layshock would clarify the rules in this area, but with these two conflicting decisions, I feel like there's less guidance than ever," said Witold Walczak, the legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Layshock, now a senior at St. John's University in New York, created the profile at his grandmother's home during non-school hours.
When Mr. Trosch learned who created it, he suspended Mr. Layshock for 10 days. The high school senior was forbidden from attending any extracurricular activities, forced to attend alternative education and had to skip his high school graduation.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the students in both cases, argued in Mr. Layshock's original lawsuit that the school's supervisory powers did not reach so far as to his grandmother's home.
First Published February 5, 2010 12:00 am
