Calling someone a douchebag on the Internet usually doesn't result in much in the way of major consequences. That is unless, of course, you're in high school and the douchebag in question is a school official. In the case of Lewis S. Mills High School senior Avery Doninger, the use of the d-word on her blog resulted in her losing her position as class secretary—something that she and her mother believe is unfair and a violation of her First Amendment rights. Unfortunately for the Doningers, the courts have thus far sided with the school's decision. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court decision yesterday, saying that while it was sympathetic to Avery's plight, the school did not violate her constitutional rights.

It all started with a dispute over a battle of the bands event last year. The student council, of which Avery was the secretary, had gotten into a disagreement with school officials over an already-twice-rescheduled battle of the bands. The school wanted to reschedule yet again because a certain teacher could not be present to operate the lighting equipment, and rebuffed the council's requests to hire a professional or have a parent operate it instead. Avery and members of the council drafted an e-mail asking others to call or write the district superintendent to support their cause, resulting in numerous phone calls. This apparently angered school officials, according to court documents, resulting in the possible cancellation of the event altogether. We say "possible" because the students offer slightly conflicting reports of the events from what school officials told the court (school officials claim that they merely admonished the students for sending a mass e-mail).

Avery then made a post on her personal blog while at home, outside of school hours. In it, she used somewhat unladylike language to describe school officials, and called on other students to write or call in their complaints. (As an aside, this request actually seems quite diplomatic for an angry high schooler. But I digress.) The blog post contained no threats and was fairly benign outside of her use of the word in question. Although the blog post is no longer online, it's excerpted in some of the court filings:

jamfest is cancelled due to douchebags in central office. here is an email that we sent to a ton of people and asked them to forward to everyone in their address book to help get support for jamfest. basically, because we sent it out, Paula Schwartz is getting a TON of phone calls and emails and such. we have so much support and we really appriciate it. however, she got pissed off and decided to just cancel the whole thing all together. [...] And here is a letter my mom sent to Paula [Schwartz] and cc’d Karissa [Niehoff] to get an idea of what to write if you want to write something or call her to piss her off more. im down.

As it turns out, Jamfest was eventually rescheduled and went down with all but one of the original bands. It just so happened that Avery and the rest of the council were running for reelection in the spring, however. Once school officials discovered her blog post by means of a random Internet search, they barred her from being reelected and from being able to speak at graduation. The reason? They had decided that her blog post had created a "foreseeable risk of substantial disruption" at the school, and couldn't risk having Avery in a position representing the class.

She and her mother then sued the school district, saying that officials violated Avery's First Amendment rights under the Constitution, as well as the Connecticut Constitution. They asked the school to hold new elections and allow Avery to run. The district court ruled against the Doningers, however, saying that they did not show a sufficient likelihood of success if such an injunction were to be granted. The Doningers appealed the decision, bringing us to where we are today.

The Court of Appeals noted that adults may have a constitutional right to use vulgar or offensive speech in order to make a point, but that it "may legitimately give rise to disciplinary action by a school" if a school is responsible for "teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior." Although Avery made her statements off school grounds and outside of school hours, they were related to school activities and ultimately caused some level of disruption within the school setting. The court also noted that if Avery had distributed her comments in the form of a flier on school grounds, offensive forms of expression "may be prohibited." Avery's position as secretary was also considered a "privilege" that could be rescinded at any point, the court said, especially since her actions apparently undermined the values of the student government as an extracurricular activity.

Ultimately, the court of appeals decided that Avery's constitutional rights were not violated by the school. "We are sympathetic to her disappointment at being disqualified from running for Senior Class Secretary and acknowledge her belief that in this case, 'the punishment did not fit the crime,'" reads the decision. "We are not called upon, however, to decide whether the school officials in this case exercised their discretion wisely... we are not authorized to intervene absent 'violations of specific constitutional guarantees.'"

The decision concerns free speech advocates because of the cloudy nature of the blog post. No threats were made and no major student demonstrations occurred—at most, the students were a bit "riled up" (according to Avery's testimony) over having their event possibly cancelled and their student council going to great lengths to turn the decision around. Most importantly, the decision will likely be used as further precedent in the future for schools (and possibly colleges and universities) to take action against students for their postings around the 'Net.

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