EDUCATION ON TWITTER EDUCATION ON TWITTER NASHVILLE  The expulsion of a high school basketball player who posted angry messages on Facebook highlights a growing debate over students' privacy and free-speech rights online. Taylor Cummings, 17, a senior at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School, had been butting heads with his coaches. He logged onto Facebook at home on Jan. 3 and wrote, among other things, "I'ma kill em all." He was suspended the next day and expelled Jan. 14, Cummings and his family say. School officials decline to discuss the case but say they have suspended and expelled students in the past for infractions that involved social networks, text messaging, e-mail and other technologies. FACEBOOK: Teen expelled for threatening posts "We have to take any threat as a potential for being a real threat," says Olivia Brown, spokeswoman for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, says schools are wrestling with how to handle students' free-speech and privacy rights online. Recent cases include the suspension in suburban Syracuse, N.Y., last month of a seventh-grader who created a Facebook page that school officials say included obscene postings about a teacher. Mouthing off to a friend about a teacher isn't new, says Lisa Soronen, attorney for the National School Boards Association. What's new is that "technology allows you to do it very anonymously and also permanently and publicly," she says. The Supreme Court has yet to weigh in, so "the jury is still out on whether courts are going to allow schools to punish students for this type of speech," says Catherine Crump, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. The ACLU believes schools don't have the authority to punish students for speech out of school, Crump says. In a case such as Cummings', officials must consider whether the threats are serious or whether the speech would cause a substantial disruption to the school, says David Hudson, of the First Amendment Center, a non-partisan center at Vanderbilt University that studies free-expression issues. "True threats are not protected by the First Amendment." Cummings' father, Harrison Cummings, says the language his son used was inappropriate but he shouldn't have been expelled. Taylor, who has no history of school violence or suspensions, wrote a letter apologizing to his coach. He says the posts weren't meant to be taken literally and he never intended to hurt anyone. The family appealed the expulsion to a board made up of principals from other schools; it was upheld last week. The boy's parents plan to home-school him for the rest of the semester. He plans to go to college and law school. "I have a lot of regrets about the situation, especially the outcome," he says, "but I am not willing to let it define me or what I can accomplish." Sarrio reports for The Tennessean in Nashville. Bazar reported from McLean, Va. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more