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There's some weird shit on that site...

VA judge strikes down dancing restriction “There’s bound to be trouble when you mix drinking, country music and dancing,” said Danny Stanley, the only member of the five-person Council who would consent to an interview.

I'm tired of school administrations being so petty that they think a student disliking them is a reason to suspend or otherwise "punish" students. It's one thing to punish someone for interrupting class by insulting a teacher outright, but entirely different and downright immature to say that they are not entitled to express themselves at home. Between this and the recent spying laptops scandal, whatever happened to being "for the children", rather than "anything so the f#!kers sit still in class"? If they're so worried about not being liked, why punish them arbitrarily?

I certainly hope they get lawyer fees repaid, because this behavior is outright unacceptable. Having the power to unilaterally grant or deny education to these kids based on whether or not they "like" you, is power that is apparently being abused. The "Vegan" sweater case is a nice example, but I'd imagine most of you TL;DR'd the hybrid TFA/summary, so here's the link: http://libertarianrock.com/1999/09/vegan-student-may-seek-new-judge/

I fear a world where education is taken or given away on the whims of a single official.

Not a lawyer but found resources (site is cosmetically terrible but information rich) on some case histories in this sort of thing.

Probably the closest case to that is Morse v. Frederick in which students stood just off school property with a banner reading "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS." Basically what it seems to come down to is that you have some first amendment rights as a minor in school unless your message contradicts stated school goals or hinders the learning process.

So the banner contradicted their anti-drug agenda and therefore it was ruled as okay to suspend them for the act. Similarly I guess a judge could interpret undermining a teacher's status as an authority figure to be an inhibition of the learning process in the facebook page. I don't agree with that ruling but this didn't seem to be addressed in the lengthy opinion piece presented above.

A classic case of a message not hindering the learning process was Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District in which black armbands were worn to protest the Vietnam war.

In high school some kids circulated a 'zine that was laden with four letter words and was distributed via a student's access to his mom's work's photocopying machine during after hours. We were aware that some of them had been confiscated and you got detention for profanity but since we never really attacked teachers, it never resulted in suspension or worse. During the 'vest craze' of the late nineties, I fashioned a vest out of duct tape and made "Old Navy Sucks, GAP Blows" out of duct tape letters on it. And I was allowed to wear it throughout the whole school day claiming it was a political message if anyone gave me grief. I actually recall being pretty disappointed at the lack of attention I was given for it. The school had some rule about profanity so if you wore a shirt with profanity you had to turn it inside out. I guess 'sucks/blows' wasn't foul enough.

Long story short: as a minor you have some free speech rights in school but not all of them. Any that violate the reason you're in school are restricted. Any that undermine the stated goals of your institution are restricted. I think it's sad that this gets escalated so much ... was the teacher really that insecure of themselves that they thought the Facebook group hurt them?

Whatever was going on in Utah needs to be looked at though. That story was downright disturbing. "Curbing the straight edge movement" was one of their school's stated goals?! Vegan statements were construed as 'straight edge'?! I must have missed something about the dangers of the straight edge movement and veganism because that smells like complete administrative bullshit from where I'm standing.

I think you seem to have forgotten history about the Clinton administration (I'll have to do a little guilt-by-association to her husband as she wasn't in office for parts, but I think it's reasonable). It's not a voter ploy, she actually believes this crap.

1) COPA http://www.epic.org/free_speech/copa/
2) Pushed the theater owners organization to be aggressive on people under 18 seeing "R" movies: http://www.libertarianrock.com/topics/censorship/t heater_owner_pr_id_check.html
3) Called for regulation of video games http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/14/news_61290 40.html
4) Today's stuff
5) Past history with Tipper Gore

Some additional interesting (and slightly depressing) reading can be found here.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.