Responding to Cyber Bullying by Myers Jill J.;McCaw Donna S.;Hemphill Leaunda S.; & Donna S. McCaw & Leaunda S. Hemphill

Author:Myers, Jill J.;McCaw, Donna S.;Hemphill, Leaunda S.; & Donna S. McCaw & Leaunda S. Hemphill
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1051682
Publisher: Corwin Press
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Targets for Violence

In Wisniewski v. Board of Education,7 discussed previously, the Second Circuit Court upheld the school’s suspension of a student under the theory that there was a reasonable and foreseeable risk that an off-campus cyber expression suggesting violence would reach school authorities. The case facts included the student e-mailing 15 of his classmates an icon depicting a pistol firing a bullet at a person’s head. The message also referenced killing his English teacher, Mr. VanderMolen. Although the student meant the message as a joke and did not bring the message on campus, the school was allowed to suspend the student for one semester. The court found that because the school had to investigate the incident by interviewing students and replacing the teacher who was the subject of the attack, the school satisfied the Tinker test. The school adequately demonstrated that a substantial disruption to the school environment had occurred.

Likewise, in J.S. ex rel. H.S. v. Bethlehem Area School District8 and LaVine v. Blaine School District,9 the courts found the substantial disruption standard was met when students created off-campus expressions threatening violence. The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, case involved a website titled “Teacher Sux.” This website solicited funds to help pay for a hitman. The LaVine case involved a poem titled “Last Words,” wherein the student’s expression depicted the shooting of his fellow classmates. In both instances, school officials sufficiently established that the off-campus creations caused a substantial disruption to the institution.

Two recent cases decided post-Morse, in essence, abandoned the Tinker substantial disruption requirement when the student’s speech threatened school safety. Although neither were Internet-based cases, Boim and Ponce permitted school authorities to sanction students whose speech gravely threatened violence to the school’s population. Boim involved a student’s dream of killing her math teacher. Her offensive speech was contained in a private notebook that was confiscated by school authorities. In Ponce, a student created a diary wherein he described the activities of a pseudo-Nazi group plotting to carry out Columbine-like attacks on his high school. In both cases, no Tinker showing of disruption was required.

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