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Out Of The Mouth, Onto The Tube

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Los Angeles Times

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 4, 2008

LOS ANGELES - On a sunny May afternoon, teenagers dismissed from a Beverly Hills middle school gathered outside a restaurant four blocks away and gossiped about their friends.

Amid lots of giggling, the conversation among the eighth-graders touched on the prom and limousines but was dominated by an unflattering assessment of a girl at school, who was called a "spoiled brat" and a "slut."

What might have been just another typical middle school moment became a serious headache for school officials when one of the students uploaded the conversation as a video on YouTube. Because of the Internet posting, Beverly Vista School officials found themselves grappling with their responsibility to safeguard a student's well-being and the ambiguous limits of their authority on the Web.

Citing "cyber-bullying" concerns, school administrators suspended for two days the student who uploaded the video, without disciplining others in the recording. The suspended student sued the school district in June in federal district court in Los Angeles, saying her free speech rights were violated.

As computer, video and cell phone use among students has increased in recent years, so have allegations of cyber-bullying. According to a survey released last year by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, one in three teenagers who use the Internet said they have experienced some form of online harassment. Some experts have even called it a public health concern, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding research on electronic aggression among young people.

Tom Hutton, legal counsel for the National School Boards Association, said courts generally have held school officials to "very high standards" of proof in demonstrating whether they had a reason to assert their authority outside school.

He said school officials "have to make a snap decision at times. ... That's a very tricky calculus to make."

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