> CNET News August 28, 1998, 1:35 p.m. PT
>
> The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against a school
> district in Missouri, charging that it violated a student's free speech
> rights when it suspended him for posting criticism of teachers and
> administrators on his Web site.
>
> Brandon Beussink's personal site made fun of the Woodland High School
> in Marble Hill, Missouri, where he was a junior last semester, and urged
> students to send email to school officials complaining about the site.
> Beussink's site also listed gripes about how students were treated by
> administrators and teachers.
>
> Although he complied immediately with the school's demand to remove the
> material, Beussink, 16, was suspended for ten days in February, and then
> failed the entire semester due to his absences, according to the ACLU.
>
> "I think that the school should practice what it teaches," Beussink
> said in a statement. "We study history and we study the Constitution,
> but the school doesn't seem to think that it applies to them."
>
> The first hearing in the lawsuit is expected in October--and time is
> precious. Beussink is fighting for the chance to make up credits he lost
> because of the suspension. Unless the ACLU wins the case, he may not
> graduate on time next June, according to the suit. The group also is
> asking the federal court to have the suspension removed from Beussink's
> record and to restore his status as a senior when school starts.
>
> "What he does on his own time, with his own computer, and his own
> intellect, is not something the school can punish him for," Deborah
> Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, said today.
> "They are denying his right to an education.
>
> The Supreme Court ruled that schools can control the content of student
> newspapers if they are set up as part of curriculum, and that schools
> can prohibit protests that disrupt class work. But the ACLU and other
> legal experts say Woodland R-IV School District overstepped its
> boundaries by suspending Beussink because of content on his private Web
> site.
>
> The Woodland district argued that the site was causing a disruption
> because it linked to the school's official site.
>
> The district was not immediately available for comment, but in a May 5
> letter to the ACLU's director in Missouri, Denise Lieberman, the
> district's attorney, Kenneth McManaman, explained the school's action.
> The letter also cited at least ten other incidents that the district
> claims led to Beussink's suspension, such as an accusation that he
> placed obscenity on a school computer screen saver last October, and
> that he distracted students during class.
>
> "Brandon's conduct undermined the values the school was trying to
> teach," McManaman wrote.
>
> "In addition to being slanderous, it was profane and obscene and
> inappropriate for educational purposes," he added. "Instead of
> continuing to whine, I would suggest that Mr. Beussink suck it up, take
> his punishment like a man, get back to school, and start behaving like
> he should in the classroom."
>
> The ACLU has gotten involved in at least one other case regarding a
> student's private Web site.
>
> In April, a student who insulted his band teacher on his Web site was
> awarded $30,000 after suing his Cleveland, Ohio, school district. Sean
> O'Brien, a student of Westlake High School, was suspended for the
> remarks. In return for the settlement, the student dropped a lawsuit
> claiming the school board violated his First Amendment right to free
> speech.
>
> In another example, a high school senior in Florida also criticized his
> school and said the assistant principal had the "personality of sour
> milk" on his private Web site, according to the Student Press Law
> Center. Kyle Stevens, a student at Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School, was
> suspended for ten days, but with the ACLU's help, he got the punishment
> reduced.
>
> In some cases, schools have simply appealed to Net access or Web site
> hosts to remove controversial sites erected by their students. Last
> July, GeoCities cited its terms of service when it voluntarily shut down
> a Web site that rated the looks and sex appeal of students and teachers
> at a Palo Alto, California, middle school.
>
> "Schools have somewhat greater leeway to regulate students' speech
> within the school, than for example the government has to regulate adult
> speech," said David Cole, a constitutional law professor at the
> Georgetown University Law Center. "But as far as I know, that greater
> leeway has never been extended to student speech outside the school
> setting, nor should it."
> --