William C. Odle, Monday, August 01, 2011 | Filed under: Social Networking, First Amendment, Investigations, Discipline, Student Privacy
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit today affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor a school district and against tenth grade student who was suspended for sending "instant messages" to various friends in which the plaintiff talked about bringing a gun to school and committing acts of violence. The case,
D.J.M. v. Hannibal Public School Dist., can be found
here.
The messages in question were sent by DJM through his home computer to various friends (who were also using their home computers), including messages to a female student, CM. Although CM initially believed DJM to be joking, she became concerned at the increasingly threatening nature of DJM's messages and alerted a school administrator, who in turn contacted police. DJM was taken into juvenile custody and later suspended for the balance of the school year. DJM and his parents sued the School District under Section 1983, alleging that the School District had violated the First Amendment because the instant messages in question were not "school speech."
Rejecting this claim, the court held that true threats are not protected by the First Amendment and here the school district was given enough information that it reasonably feared DJM had access to a handgun and was thinking about shooting specific classmates. In light of the district's obligation to protect its students and reasonable concerns created by other school shooting incidents, the district did not violate DJM's First Amendment rights by notifying the police about the messages and subsequently suspending him after he was placed in juvenile detention. The action was also appropriate under the school's authority to prevent a "substantial disruption" of school activities. The court also found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in remanding DJM's state law claim for administrative relief to Missouri state court after it dismissed his Section 1983 claims.