School sued for punishing teens over racy MySpace pix

We read:

"INDIANAPOLIS: Two American high school girls have sued their school district after they were punished for posting sexually suggestive photos on MySpace during their summer holiday.

The American Civil Liberties Union, in a federal lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the girls, argues that Churubusco High School violated the girls' free speech rights when it banned them from extracurricular activities for a joke that didn't involve the school. They say the district humiliated the girls by requiring them to apologise to an all-male coaches' board and undergo counseling.

Some child advocates argue that schools should play a role in monitoring students' behaviour, especially when dealing with minors. And the US Supreme Court has ruled that students can be disciplined for activities that happen outside of school, so long as the school can prove the activities were disruptive or posed a danger and that it was foreseeable the activities would find their way to campus.

In the Indiana case, the ACLU argues that the district and Churubusco Principal Austin Couch went too far in banning the two students from sports, requiring them to apologise to the all-male coaches' board and undergo counselling after the photographs were circulated at school.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Fort Wayne, names Couch, the high school and the district as defendants and seeks unspecified damages. No hearing has been scheduled.

ACLU legal director Ken Falk insists the Churubusco case doesn't warrant the punishment the district handed out. "We all did things when we were sophomores in high school that can be construed as immature or problematic or whatever, but that is not the issue here," he said. "The issue is what possible impact this could have on the school environment, and the answer is none."

The girls, identified only by their initials in the suit, took the photos during a sleepover with friends before school started this summer and posted them on their MySpace pages, setting the privacy controls so only those designated as friends could view them. In the photos, the girls wore lingerie and pretended to lick a penis-shaped lollipop. None of the photos made any reference to the school.

The ACLU argues that the Indiana case is different. They say the photos were a joke intended to be shared only with friends. It wants the school district to expunge all references to the incident from school records and seeks to bar the school from taking similar action in the future.

Palfrey, of Harvard, said schools have a right to regulate students' online behaviour but said the court will have to decide whether the students' First Amendment rights were violated.

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