The Problem with Discretion

As I read through Doninger v. Niehodd, I was struck by how easily the administration was able to blacklist Avery for speaking her mind. The girl was frustrated by the school's inflexibility - the administration claimed it was impossible to retain the date of a school show since the teacher who was in charge of the sound board would be absent, and refused to let students or an outside professional run the equipment - and she appealed to the greater public to validate her frustration. As far as I can tell, Niehoff only prevented Avery's election to Senior class secretary because it irritated her that Avery had encouraged the broader community to question her decision. That Niehoff had such unilateral power concerns me, especially since a plurality of students voted for Avery even though her name was not allowed to appear on the ballot.

The court's decision, that the school had the right to censure Avery, relied heavily on the fact that Avery's blogpost contained vulgarity, and argued that such foul language was responsible for a "substantial disruption to the work and discipline of the school", which is something the administration can censure. I am not, however, convinced that the outcome of the case would have been any different had Avery phrased her blogpost less offensively. The law seems to give administrators nearly absolute control to regulate student speech when their own policies are being questioned. In Tinker, the plaintiffs' right to free speech was upheld because they were expressing discontent related to a national issue, the Vietnam War. On the other hand, because Avery directed her criticism locally at the administration itself, her criticism was immediately construed as a threat to order within the school, thereby meriting repercussions. The court was sympathetic to Avery's disappointment, but ultimately acknowledged that it was for the administration to decide what speech acts did and did not constitute a threat to order within the school. I find such discretion alarming.

I am not arguing that schools should have no right to regulate student speech - Morse v. Frederick is one instance where the school acted in good faith. Rather I am simply concerned that so much depends on the discretion of the administration, which is not always used properly. Consider, for instance, the eight year old boy who was sent home and required to undergo psychological evaluation because, two weeks before Christmas, he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross and showed his teacher (granted, he told her it was a self-portrait). You may disagree, but I think this is a clear instance of a school official misusing her authority. Mostly I am just worried that Doninger upholds the excessive ability of school administrations to discourage students from speaking their mind, especially in cases where criticism of the school itself is involved. Questioning authority is an important part of the educational process, and I would not want to see it subsumed by schools who often prefer rather to silence objectors than to address their concerns. Since the internet allows every student to be heard in the public forum, I fear schools will start to abuse its public nature in order to discourage dissent.

My question: Does anyone know of other cases in which a school has penalized a student for criticizing it on the internet? Such a case might help to answer Alex's question of whether livejournal postings count as "on-campus speech".