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A case of free speech vs. school discipline
Judge will decide if student's vulgar Web site warranted penalty
Saturday, May 13, 2000
By ROBERT GAVIN
OLYMPIA -- In a case that pits school discipline against free speech, a Thurston County judge will soon decide whether a high school violated a student's rights when it suspended him for posting a vulgarity-laced Internet parody of an assistant principal.
The Web site, produced exclusively at the student's home, included electronically altered photos that placed the image of the assistant principal in a Viagra commercial, into a Nazi book-burning scene and on the body of a cartoon character having sex. The student, Karl Beidler, then a junior at Timberline High School in Lacey, included on the Web site a lengthy disclaimer identifying it as a joke.
School officials called it a disruption and suspended Beidler for nearly half the school year. Beidler and his parents went to court seeking to have the suspension declared unlawful and asked for unspecified monetary damages.
The case, potentially precedent-setting, was heard yesterday in Thurston Superior Court. It could determine what authority Washington schools have to regulate what their students say on Web sites created outside of school. Regardless of the ruling by Judge William Thomas McPhee, both sides expect the decision to be appealed.
Courts have ruled that written material published off-campus enjoys the protection of the First Amendment, and schools have no power to sanction students if they find the publications objectionable.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which is representing the student, argues these same free-speech protections extend to the Internet. The ACLU sees Web sites that criticize, mock or parody school officials as the electronic equivalent of an underground newspaper.
The North Thurston School District, however, says the Internet -- with its wide reach and instantaneous access -- is far more powerful than a pamphlet. In some cases, it can become the electronic equivalent of following teachers after school and harassing them, the school district argues.
School officials should have the power to punish such behavior, the district argues.
"What is the consequence for the school environment when a student can retaliate" against a teacher on the Internet, said Michael Tierney, the district's lawyer. "If the disruptive effects are there, the school has the power to sanction the speech."
The case is one of a handful of similar Internet cases that have found their way into the courts in Washington state and around the nation. In February, a federal court blocked the suspension of a Kent high school student who had used his home computer to create a parody of his school's Web site.
A federal court in Missouri in 1998 also blocked a school district from punishing a student who had created at his home a Web site sharply critical of his school.
Beidler created his Web site at home in January 1999 after school officials made him and other students take down a similar site created at school, and punished them, according to court papers. When school officials discovered Beidler had posted a new Web site attacking the assistant principal, they suspended him for "exceptional misconduct."
Beidler enrolled in an alternative school to complete his junior year, but returned to Timberline in the fall. He is scheduled to graduate in a few weeks.
The assistant principal, Dave Lehnis, is now the principal. He declined comment yesterday.
Beidler's father, Kurt, said he found the site totally inappropriate, and he made his son take it down after he learned of it. But, he added, the family decided to sue because they believed the school's response to the incident went too far.
"I'm not proud of what he did, but we didn't feel we got a fair shake," said Kurt Beidler. "We didn't feel the school had the right to supersede our judgment."
In yesterday's hearing, Robert Hedrick, an ACLU lawyer representing the Beidlers, said courts have granted schools power to regulate speech on their campuses. But as long as the Web sites are created at home, on home computers, on student's own time, the school has no right to punish them, Hedrick argued. The students are protected by the First Amendment.
"Administrators didn't like the Web site," Hedrick said of Beidler's case. "They reached into his private home and punished him with school sanctions . . . (and) violate(d) his freedom of speech."
But Tierney, the school's lawyer, said schools are charged to provide a safe learning environment, and Web sites such as Beidler's can undermine that environment. Under state law they have the right to determine what is disruptive, and the power to take actions to prevent it, he said.
"The school's function is to educate children," he said. "The educational function can only be accomplished by maintaining order and discipline."
P-I reporter Robert Gavin can be reached at 360-943-8311 or robertgavin@seattle-pi.com
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