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Friday, February 20, 2009

Law - Even more on: "Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web": Students at Yale Law and Indiana University Feel Effects of Anonymous Attacks

Supplementing this ILB entry from this morning, Yale Law School had a conference last weekend, "The Future of Student Internet Speech: What Are We Teaching the Facebook Generation?" Access the agenda here. And Yale Daily News had a story on the conference, reported by Anna Sophie Creager, on Feb. 16. It begins:

A case pitting Connecticut public school administrators against a high school student’s personal blog took center stage at a Yale Law School conference on free speech over the weekend.

The case, Doninger v. Niehoff, ruled on contentious issues forming the heart of debate at the conference, “The Future of Internet Speech: What Are We Teaching the Facebook Generation?” hosted by the Yale Law School’s Law and Media Program. Approximately forty students, professors and journalists gathered for the two-day conference, which was precipitated by a series of recent court decisions , including Doninger v. Niehoff, that conference attendees said have restricted the ability of young people to write and speak freely in and out of school or on the Internet.

In Doninger v. Niehoff, courts upheld a school district’s decision to kick student Avery Doninger out of student government after Doninger called school officials “douchebags” in a personal blog.

“I feel as if I am standing on the edge of an abyss that is the grave of the First Amendment Rights of students,” Doninger’s attorney Jon Schoenhorn said.

Courts have said public schools have the authority to restrict student speech if it interferes with the school’s educational mission: In Doninger v. Niehoff, a Connecticut federal court sided with school officials, arguing that student Doninger’s vulgar language hindered the school administrators’ ability to create a safe and civil school environment.

Here is a long list of earlier related ILB entries, including Indiana's "MySpace case."

For more on Doninger v. Niehoff, see this entry in Eduction Week, written by Mark Welsh, and this webpage from the Citizens Media Law Project, which links to all the documents.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 20, 2009 02:33 PM
Posted to General Law Related