Legal Issues Still Murky on Online Student Speech

Online activity by students remains contentious issue

The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal last week to take up appeals involving school discipline of student speech on the Internet leaves the state of the law unclear for school leaders, parents, and students themselves.

"It's disappointing, but at some point, the Supreme Court is going to have to take a case and tell us what we can and cannot do," said James McGonigle, the principal of Blue Mountain Middle School in Orwigsburg, Pa., who was the target of a student's harsh Web parody at the center of one of the cases the justices declined to review. "If it happens again, what do I do?"

Even champions of strong First Amendment protection for student speech, especially speech away from school, agree that this area of the law demands greater clarity. For this Supreme Court term, however, these cases represented the court's last chance to...