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http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0536825420070705
By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. school was justified in suspending a teenager for using an Internet icon of a pistol firing a bullet and a message urging the death of his English teacher, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.
The court turned down an appeal by the parents of Aaron Wisniewski, who had sued the local board of education and its superintendent claiming the student should not have been suspended for a semester because the image was protected speech, not a threat.
Wisniewski, who attended Weedsport Middle School in New York state, created the image used in sending instant messages to his friends in 2001 that included an image of a pistol firing a bullet at a person's head, splattered blood and the words "Kill Mr. VanderMolen."
VanderMolen was the boy's English teacher.
The icon "crudely" suggested his teacher "should be shot and killed" and it was "reasonably foreseeable that Wisniewski's communication would cause a disruption within the school environment," the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, agreeing with a lower court judge's initial ruling.
Lawyers for Wisniewski had argued that since he sent the message from home the image was not a threat and said a police investigator and psychologist both concluded that it was meant as a joke.
The U.S. Supreme Court last week issued its first major ruling on student free-speech rights in nearly 20 years. The court's conservative majority ruled that a high school principal did not violate a student's rights by confiscating a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" for promoting drug use and suspending the student.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0536825420070705
By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. school was justified in suspending a teenager for using an Internet icon of a pistol firing a bullet and a message urging the death of his English teacher, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.
The court turned down an appeal by the parents of Aaron Wisniewski, who had sued the local board of education and its superintendent claiming the student should not have been suspended for a semester because the image was protected speech, not a threat.
Wisniewski, who attended Weedsport Middle School in New York state, created the image used in sending instant messages to his friends in 2001 that included an image of a pistol firing a bullet at a person's head, splattered blood and the words "Kill Mr. VanderMolen."
VanderMolen was the boy's English teacher.
The icon "crudely" suggested his teacher "should be shot and killed" and it was "reasonably foreseeable that Wisniewski's communication would cause a disruption within the school environment," the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, agreeing with a lower court judge's initial ruling.
Lawyers for Wisniewski had argued that since he sent the message from home the image was not a threat and said a police investigator and psychologist both concluded that it was meant as a joke.
The U.S. Supreme Court last week issued its first major ruling on student free-speech rights in nearly 20 years. The court's conservative majority ruled that a high school principal did not violate a student's rights by confiscating a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" for promoting drug use and suspending the student.
