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Posted on 05/28/2009 10:42:22 AM PDT by McGruff
Ruled teen's blog post created a created "foreseeable risk of substantial disruption"
President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy has yet another tie to Connecticut. She sided against a student in the infamous “douche bag” case, and that has upset some free-speech advocates.
In August 2007, Judge Sonia Sotomayor sat on a panel that ruled against an appeal in Doninger v. Niehoff.
Avery Doninger was disqualified from running for school government at Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington after she posted something on her blog, referring to the superintendent and other officials as "douche bags" because they canceled a battle of the bands she had helped to organize.
The case went to court and in March 2008, Sotomayor was on a panel that heard Doninger’s mother’s appeal alleging her daughter’s free speech and other rights were violated. Her mother wanted to prevent the school from barring her daughter from running. [more at link]
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcconnecticut.com ...
Free Republic. You're next.
we know better than any snot nosed teenage douche bag! Finally! Somebody who can... 
get the press off my old white ass!
Aren't they... 
a lovely couple?
So she’s against free speech. Fits right in with the congressional democrats.
Well...how about commie "scumbag"?
Or.....how about stinking "scrotum bag"?
OK. Just so no disruption will be created I will not use those terms for our lovable leader.
Heaven forbid a student say a negative word about their overlords. The school super and the others need to spine up, and remember that not every person is going to like them.
Isn’t that what they tell the students in Kindergarten and the first grade?
This is shallow to the max. The superintendent was an idiot. The others covered by this slam were idiots. These judges acted as... yep, you guessed it, IDIOTS.
The school officials should have been laughed out of court by the judges. Instead Sotomayer and the other judges actually reverenced their consummate stupidity.
Yes children, we’re teaching you to bow to your masters.
The students are laughed off by these scum. Parents are laughed off by these scum. And I guess our Constitution is laughed off by them as well.
OFF-CAMPUS REMARKS!!! They should have nothing to do with school. This is an invasion of free speech. She was not in an official school function.
This case might well cause the DUmmies to sit up and take notice of how poor a choice she is now too.
I can see many of them being outraged if they were held accountable IRL for what they posted on line.
Love it, she is going to start to get pressure from both left and right!
So, Republicans are upset that Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Why?
She was nominated to the U.S. District Court in New York by Republican George H. W. Bush and confirmed on unanimous consent of the Senate. Then, when she was nominated by Bill Clinton to be a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, 25 Republican senators voted to confirm her.
And back when Clinton nominated the ultra-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, only 3 Republicans out of 44 in the Senate at the time voted against her.
The Republicans are a little late to be opposing Ms. Sotomayor.
Better late than never.
But let’s just we get the facts straight.
Sadly I agreed with the courts ruling... The administrators were over the top but its not the place for the US judicial system to rectify who can and can not run for class president..
Still The more flak she catches the better.
Wonder what she thinks of gay pride rallies in our public schools.......
Senators, even those in the opposing party from the White House, wield great power over who is nominated to the district court seats in their states. And in 1991, when Sotomayor was nominated, the Senate was controlled by Democrats, and the two senators from New York were Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Republican Alphonse D’Amato.
By a number of accounts, Moynihan and D’Amato had a long-standing arrangement from the Reagan years. “It was a special deal whereby D’Amato agreed to defer to the pick of Moynihan for one out of every four district court seats,” another former Bush official told me. “That was a deal that preceded [President George H.W. Bush], so basically Moynihan was picking one of four district court nominees.”
In 1991, it was Moynihan’s turn to choose, and his choice was Sotomayor. There is no evidence that anyone in the Bush I White House or Justice Department thought Sotomayor was a conservative, or even a moderate, but no one wanted a fight with Moynihan.
She's "pro-douchebag."
“As the Supreme Court cautioned years ago, “[t]he system of public education that has evolved in this Nation relies necessarily upon the discretion and judgment of school administrators and school board members,” and we are not authorized to intervene absent “violations of specific constitutional guarantees.”
I am not so sure I disagree with this ruling.
In the right cases the court should say that this is really not up to us and we (the courts) should stay out of it.
Schools should expect respect from students and if they don’t get it the student expect to be punished. I am willing to bet that the schools code of conduct lays out what is unacceptable speech in regards to school officials and this student crossed the line.
The court used discretion in not ruling on the case. I am ok with this decision.
High School students are not adults and are not entitled to the same First Amendment guarantees when it comes to school. Order and discipline in the school require that certain rights of students be abridged.
If in loco parentis is to mean anything a student’s First Amendment rights have to be held to a more limited range. How many parents would be Ok with their children calling them "douche bags" on their blog?
School officials should have the same right to respect.
This judge scares the heck out of me other wise but this non-decision is OK with me.
Flame Retardant underwear donned, let the flaming begin.
—The administrators were over the top but its not the place for the US judicial system to rectify who can and can not run for class president..—
The school was a public (i.e. local government) school, so the Bill of Rights applies via the 14th Amendment. Public schools have the right to restrict speech on school grounds (these rulings date back to Vietnam War-era protests) but the “douchebag” reference was made on an OFF-campus blog. Soto et al. came to the fatuous conclusion that even though the blog was off school property, it could still be read in school, and thus be disruptive. Logical gymnastics that would make Olga Korbut proud.
Apparently the road to hell is paved with excuses.
When good compromised with evil evil wins. And when evil compromises with good evil advances.
What would be the course you would urge the girl and her parents to take then?
This is clearly an abuse of power. Calling someone a name like this is so sophomoric that it defies logic to even respond to it. Ignoring it was the only logical thing to do, and yet these brain-trusts dignified it with punitive action.
Should they have that type of unilateral power?
Should the girl have no recourse?
It sounds as if they sought an injunction, were turned down, and appealed that. Isn’t that reasoned?
Exactly. And 41 never had much fire in the belly when it came to fighting liberalism.
Nope.
They decided not to decide.
<{> “As the Supreme Court cautioned years ago, “[t]he system of public education that has evolved in this Nation relies necessarily upon the discretion and judgment of school administrators and school board members,” and we are not authorized to intervene absent “violations of specific constitutional guarantees.”
If I understand this the court let stand the lower court’s ruling.
“The continual expansion of the authority of school officials over student speech teaches a foul lesson to these future citizens,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the New Britain Herald. “I would prefer some obnoxious speech [rather] than teaching students that they must please government officials if they want special benefits or opportunities.”
Now first off it has been the case every where I have been in life that if you want a special benefit or opportunity you hade to show respect to those who had the power to grant it, so how is that a foul or incorrect lesson to teach a student.
Second in my opinion the school’s authority over students has been continually been under assault by the courts and trial lawyers. In my day students had to tow the line much more closely than today. And in my parents day it was get a beating at school if you messed up and another when you got home.
It is past time that schools got some power back,
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