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They BOTH got punished. I agree with the Principal's 2-day suspension -- she's a district employee, and she used a school computer to send an email to a stranger, discussing an ongoing legal case.

The word douche-bag seem to set off the School Board to deny the student Doninger to hold office. "Stick and stones can break my bones, but WORDS can never hurt me" -- we all remember that one from our childhood. That's why cruel and unusual punishment is NOT permitted by our Constitution, but Free Speech is.

Next time it could be YOUR child who says something you deem as not incitement at all, but the School Board takes offense to it and punishes your kid. Would they punish someone for using the word Nimrod, obtuse, jackass? Maybe, now they've been given the nod to do so by the court and Sotomayor...

Here is the student's, Doninger, blog post as quoted in the decision:

jamfest is cancelled due to douchebags in central office. here is an email that we sent to a ton of people and asked them to forward to everyone in their address book to help get support for jamfest. basically, because we sent it out, Paula Schwartz is getting a TON of phone calls and emails and such. we have so much support and we really appriciate it. however, she got pissed off and decided to just cancel the whole thing all together. anddd so basically we aren’t going to have it at all, but in the slightest chance we do it is going to be after the talent show on may 18th. andd..here is the letter we sent out to parents.

The post then reproduced the email that the Student Council members sent that morning. The post continued:

And here is a letter my mom sent to Paula [Schwartz] and cc’d Karissa [Niehoff] to get an idea of what to write if you want to write something or call her to piss her off more. im down.—

Avery then reproduced an email that her mother had sent to Schwartz earlier in the day concerning the dispute.

The court decision -- left to Stand by Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor -- said that this was disruptive and thus fair grounds for government sanction and not subject to First Amendment protection. Their decision relies on three factors:

1. The language was offensive, and would incite offensive communications by students and parents to the school.
2. The explanation that the event had been canceled was misleading, and the confusion created by that misleading information might be disruptive to the school.
3. No showing of actual disruption is required - only the potential for disruption.

Yeah, I have a problem with that ruling, and how Sotomayor let it stand.