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Do Public Schools Have Grounds To Punish Students For Their Off-Campus Online Speech?

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Do Public Schools Have Grounds To Punish Students For Their Off-Campus Online Speech?
Do Public Schools Have Grounds to Punish Students for Their Off-Campus Online Speech?
Students raised in today’s technologically advanced society are enjoying amenities that simply could not be imagined even a few decades ago. One of these technology-enabled privileges include online communication via social media websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. At the present time, the utilization of online social media within the student population has become so mainstream that formal college admissions applications are beginning to request students’ personal social media address alongside their home and mailing address. Furthermore, many institutions of higher education boast flamboyant official websites that encourage prospective students …show more content…
Thus, it is quite likely that schools may not have established official policies regarding online social media, and, even if pertinent policies do exist, the students may not be cognizant of these policies until after the fact. To this end, the current issue presents two opposing perspectives with respect to public schools’ authority over students’ online social media activity executed off-campus. On one side, in Layshock v. Hermitage School District, Chief Judge Theodore A. McKee, acting on behalf of the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals, upheld Hermitage School District’s decision to discipline a student for his derogatory online speech regarding the principal that was originated outside of the school premises on the MySpace social media platform. In contrast, on the other side, in J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, Chief Judge Theodore A. McKee, again acting on behalf of the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals, overruled Blue Mountain School District’s decision to punish a student for a very similar offense. After carefully examining the aforementioned perspectives regarding this contemporary educational issue, I have concluded that public schools lack sufficient justification to …show more content…
J., & Robbins, T. W. (2012). Decision-making in the adolescent brain. Nature
Neuroscience, 15(9), 1184-1191.
Bosker, B. (2011, August 25). ‘Tweet,’ ‘Social Media’ added to Merriam-Webster
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