Mississippi student back in court over rap song

Oral arguments in a lawsuit over whether a Mississippi high school student was exercising his right of free speech when he posted a rap song online criticizing two coaches he accused of misconduct toward female students are now set for May 12.

The full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case in New Orleans.

Last December, a three-judge panel overturned Taylor Bell's suspension, ruling that his actions occurred off school grounds. The full court granted the Itawamba County School District's motion for a hearing.

School officials said that Taylor Bell did not cooperate when they tried to investigate the allegations against the coaches and that he caused a major disruption at school by posting the video in early 2011. The accusations were never substantiated, and charges were never filed. Bell was suspended for seven days and assigned to an alternative school for more than a month.

Bell wrote the song "PSK The Truth Needs to be Told" after he said several young women told him that two coaches at school were behaving inappropriately.

School officials said they became aware of the song after it was posted on Facebook and YouTube. School attorneys said Bell made no effort to distance himself from the school and included the coaches' names and posted the school's logo with the song.

Court papers say Bell wrote the song in December 2010 and put it on his Facebook page Jan. 3, 2011. A disciplinary committee suspended Bell on Jan. 25, 2011, and the county school board upheld the suspension about two weeks after that.

Bell and his mother, Dora Bell, of Fulton, sued the county school district in 2011. A federal judge in Mississippi upheld the suspension, and Bell appealed to the 5th Circuit.

The 5th Circuit panel, in a 2-1 decision, found the school system failed to prove Bell's song caused a substantial disruption of school work or discipline.