First Amendment experts say a high school student may have been wrongly kicked out of the honor society since his comments on Facebook criticizing the school would normally be considered protected speech. -db
WESLEY CHAPEL, Flor. – Two Florida experts in First Amendment law say a Wesley Chapel High student’s rights may have been violated when he was kicked out of the National Honor Societyover a Facebook page critical of the school.
They add the caveat, though, that it’s difficult to make a definitive statement because some of the facts of the case – especially those from the school’s side – aren’t available.
“Students are citizens,” said Sandy D’Alemberte, a former Florida State University president and former dean of the FSU law school. “They have a right to express themselves within boundaries.”
Those boundaries usually involve such things as whether the comments might lead to harm to someone, he said.
“Criticisms of the school officials don’t seem to fall into that category,” D’Alemberte said.
Alex Fuentes, 18, a senior, created the Facebook page critical ofWesley Chapel High a few months ago. He said it was just a joke at first, though he was also frustrated that he was going to be graduating from a D school. Other students discovered the page and began adding their own comments – sometimes profane – about the school.
Word got back to the school and its National Honor Society chapter. Fuentes said a panel of six teachers – three of whom Fuentes was allowed to choose — voted unanimously in January to dismiss him from the National Honor Society on the grounds he had not upheld a pledge members take to show loyalty to their school.
He transferred to Wiregrass Ranch High because, he said, he no longer felt comfortable going to class with the teachers who voted against him.
Carin Nettles, the Wesley Chapel High principal, said she can’t discuss an individual student’s discipline. She said, though, that the National Honor Society follows procedures set out in the organization’s constitution when a member is accused of violating one of the group’s four pillars or the pledge students take.
“They don’t just kick someone out,” she said.
William Kaplin of the Stetson University College of Law said “at first glance it does look like a First Amendment issue.”
The issue is muddied somewhat, he said, because the student apparently is accused of violating a National Honor Society rule, not a school rule. The National Honor Society is a private entity, not a government agency, and wouldn’t necessarily be bound by the First Amendment.
In this case, though, teachers and the principal, who are government employees, are the ones enforcing the rules of the private organization.
“In that situation, it wouldn’t be difficult to argue that this is really the action of the school and is subject to the First Amendment,” Kaplin said.
He said he’s unaware of any cases exactly like this one, though there have been cases involving students engaged in Internet activities such as Facebook. Some courts have struggled with whether schools have authority over speech that takes place outside the school and not on school time, he said.
In some cases, though, Kaplin said, schools have been given leeway in restricting the speech “if it’s negatively affecting the operation of the school.”
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