Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District
30 F.Supp.2d 1175, 1998 WL 918345 (1998)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
A school violates the First Amendment when it punishes a student for off-campus speech that is merely critical or offensive to school officials, unless the speech causes a material and substantial disruption to the educational environment.
Facts:
- Brandon Beussink, a student at Woodland High School, created a homepage on his personal computer at home, outside of school hours.
- The homepage was highly critical of the school's teachers and principal, using crude and vulgar language.
- A friend of Beussink's, Amanda Brown, saw the homepage while using his home computer.
- Following an argument with Beussink, Brown deliberately accessed the homepage on a school computer and showed it to a teacher, Delma Ferrell, as an act of retaliation.
- Beussink did not authorize, request, or have knowledge of Brown accessing his homepage at school.
- Upon seeing the homepage, Principal Yancy Poorman became upset and immediately decided to discipline Beussink because the message was displayed in a classroom.
- The principal's decision to discipline was made before knowing if any other students had seen it or if it had caused any disruption.
- While the homepage was accessed a few times at school, its presence caused no material or substantial disruption to classes or school discipline.
Procedural Posture:
- Brandon Beussink, by and through his parent, filed a lawsuit against the Woodland R-IV School District in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
- The complaint alleged that the school's ten-day suspension of Beussink violated his First Amendment rights.
- Beussink filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the school from enforcing the suspension and its negative academic consequences.
- The district court held a hearing to consider the request for a preliminary injunction.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does a school district's ten-day suspension of a student for creating a critical, vulgar homepage on his personal computer at home violate the student's First Amendment free speech rights when the homepage does not materially and substantially disrupt the educational environment?
Opinions:
Majority - Sippel, District Judge
Yes, the school district's suspension of the student likely violates his First Amendment rights. Under the standard established in Tinker v. Des Moines, a school may only prohibit a student's expression of opinion if it can show the speech would 'materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.' Here, the principal disciplined Beussink not because of any actual or reasonably forecasted disruption, but because he and a teacher were personally offended by the content of the homepage. The evidence showed no significant disruption occurred. Disliking or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not a permissible justification for censorship under Tinker.
Analysis:
This case is a significant early application of the Tinker standard to student speech created off-campus on the internet. It establishes that the nexus between off-campus speech and the school is not the speech's accessibility on campus, but its actual effect on the campus environment. The decision reinforces that schools cannot punish students for critical or offensive speech simply because officials dislike the message; there must be a tangible, disruptive impact on school activities. This precedent set the stage for how courts would later analyze cases involving cyberbullying and other forms of off-campus digital speech that find their way into the school.
