IP: The good guys win: High school pays student after censoring him

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> http://www.aclu.org/news/2001/n022001a.html
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>      Tuesday, February 20, 2001
>
> SEATTLE--A former high school student who was suspended for creating a
> parody on the Internet is getting damages from the school district
> that wrongfully punished him, the American Civil Liberties Union
> announced today.
>
> Karl Beidler will receive $10,000 in damages from North Thurston
> School District for actions it took that violated his free speech
> rights.
>
> "This case sends a message to public school administrators that they
> do not have the authority to punish students for expressing their
> opinions outside of school and without the use of any school
> resources," said ACLU staff attorney Aaron Caplan. "The First
> Amendment protects a student from being kicked out of school just
> because officials don't like what the student is saying."
>
> The award of damages follows a July, 2000 ruling by a Thurston County
> Superior Court judge that public school officials cannot punish a
> student for speech outside of school.
>
> Beidler was suspended for a month in 1999 from Timberline High School
> in Lacey for posting an Internet parody lampooning the school's
> assistant principal. Then a junior, the student created the satire on
> his own computer at home on his own time. After the ACLU got involved
> in the case, he was allowed to enroll in an alternative school in the
> District. Last year he returned to Timberline and graduated with his
> class.
>
> In its ruling, the court made clear that free speech rights apply to
> speech on the Internet. "Today the First Amendment protects students'
> speech to the same extent as in 1979 or 1969, when the U.S. Supreme
> Court decided Tinker v. Des Moines," Judge Thomas McPhee said.  In
> that case, the high court issued a landmark ruling that, "Students do
> not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or
> expression at the schoolhouse gate."
>
> The Beidler decision was the most recent in a series of ACLU victories
> for student free speech rights in cyberspace. Earlier last year, Chief
> Judge John Coughenour of the U.S. District Court in Seattle issued an
> order preventing Kentlake High School from suspending student Nick
> Emmett because of a Web site parody he had created on his home
> computer. In final settlement of the case, Kent School District agreed
> not to pursue disciplinary action against the student and paid $6,000
> in attorney's fees.
>
> In addition to the damage award in today's case, the school district
> has agreed to pay $52,000 in attorney fees. ACLU cooperating attorney
> Bob Hedrick provided legal representation to the student and his
> parents.



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