In February, I wrote a blogpost about teacher Natalie Monroe's online complaints about her students. In a nutshell, I felt that her blogpost was in poor taste and was likely to undermine her rapport with her students and their parents.

Now I read about two instances where middle- and high-school students have created fake accounts for their principals on sites such as MySpace. The accounts, to say the least, are not flattering. One portrays a principal as a drunk, the other as a pedophile. Once the parents learned about these "satires," they disciplined their children. The schools went further, and the students were suspended.

Civil liberties lawyers got involved, and the Philadelphia-based appellate court determined that the satires, while mean-spirited, were not created on school property and did not make it more difficult for the principals to do their jobs. The 8-6 vote determined that the suspensions undermined the students' right to free speech.

Eight votes to six. That's a fairly slim margin. Judge Michael Fisher wrote for the dissent: "...The majority misconstrues the facts. In doing so, it allows a student to target a school official and his family with malicious and unfounded accusations about their character in vulgar, obscene, and personal language."

Interestingly, if the students who created these pages were adults, they could be sued for slander. But they aren't. They are children whose thoughtless actions are perhaps even typical for their age group.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Below are links to several articles covering the story:

Time Magazine: Why Students Have a Right to Mock Teachers Online

Education Week Teacher: Mocking Teachers Online: A Student's Right?

Digital Journal: Op-Ed: First Amendment vs. Schools--Students mock principals online