J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain School Dist.

Decision Date04 February 2010
Citation593 F.3d 286
PartiesJ.S., a minor, through her parents; Terry SNYDER; Steven Snyder, Appellants v. BLUE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL DISTRICT; Joyce Romberger; James McGonigle.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Mary E. Kohart, Aliceson K. Littman, Tara S. Sarosiek, Drinker, Biddle & Reath, Philadelphia, PA, Mary Catherine Roper (Argued), American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, Witold J. Walczak, American Civil Liberties Union, Pittsburgh, PA, for Appellants.

Jonathan P. Riba (Argued), Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams, New Britain, PA, for Appellees.

Robert D. Richards, Penn State University, University Park, PA, for Amicus Appellant.

Before FISHER and CHAGARES, Circuit Judges, and DIAMOND,* District Judge.

OPINION OF THE COURT

FISHER, Circuit Judge.

This appeal presents a challenge to J.S.'s suspension from Blue Mountain Middle School after she created from her home computer a MySpace.com Internet profile featuring her principal, James McGonigle. The profile did not state McGonigle's name, but included his photograph from the website of Blue Mountain School District (the "School District"), as well as profanity-laced statements insinuating that he was a sex addict and pedophile. On appeal, J.S. and her parents assert that the District Court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the School District, arguing that the School District violated J.S.'s First Amendment free speech rights by punishing her for creating the profile; the School District violated J.S.'s parents' fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their child by regulating her out-of-school conduct; Pennsylvania law does not permit school districts to discipline students for out-of-school conduct; and the School District's disciplinary and computer-use policies were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Because we believe school authorities could reasonably have forecasted a substantial disruption of or material interference with the school as a result of the MySpace profile, as defined by Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969), we conclude that the School District did not violate J.S.'s First Amendment free speech rights by disciplining her for creating the profile. We also reject J.S.'s additional arguments and, therefore, we will affirm.

I.
A. Factual History

In Spring 2007, J.S. was a fourteen-year-old eighth grader at Blue Mountain Middle School (the "Middle School") in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, where she lived with her two parents, Terry and Steven Snyder (the "Snyders"). She was an honor roll student and had faced discipline at school only in the form of two or three dress code violations, the most recent of which occurred on February 20, 2007.

On Sunday, March 18, 2007, J.S. and her friend K.L., another eighth grader at the Middle School, created a fictitious profile on MySpace.com from J.S.'s house using a computer belonging to J.S.'s parents.1 The profile's direct URL was http://www. myspace.com/kidsrockmybed. Although J.S. and K.L. were at their respective houses, the two girls communicated over AOL Instant Messenger, and took turns adding to the profile from their separate locations. The profile featured McGonigle's photograph, which the students had copied and pasted from the website of Blue Mountain School District (the "School District"). The profile did not identify McGonigle by name, school, or location, but instead created the page to appear to be a self-portrayal of a middle school principal named "m-hoe=]." The profile's owner described himself as a married bisexual forty-year-old man, a Virgo, and a "[p]roud parent" who lived in Alabama with his wife and child. His "Interests" section read as follows:

General detention. being a tight ass. riding the fraintrain.2 spending time with my child (who looks like a gorilla). baseball.my golden pen. fucking in my office. hitting on students and their parents.

Music i love all kinds. favorite is techno.

Television almost anything. i mainly watch — the playboy channel on directv. OH YEAH BITCH!

Heroes myself. ofcourse.

(App. at 38 (all text and formatting as in original).) Another section, entitled "About me," stated:

                                           HELLO CHILDREN
                                 yes. it's your oh so wonderful
                                      hairy, expressionless
                                sex addict, fagass, put on this
                                     world with a small dick
                                             PRINCIPAL
                                I have come to myspace so i can
                                   pervert the minds of other
                               principal's to be just like me. I
                                    know, I know, you're all
                                               thrilled
                                  Another reason I came to my
                                 space is because — I am
                                 keeping an eye on you students
                                    (who i care for so much)
                              For those who want to be my friend
                                   and aren't in my school
                               I love children, sex (any kind)
                                   dogs, long walks on the
                              beach, tv, being a dick head, and
                                   last but not least my
                              darling wife who looks like a man
                                   (who satisfies my needs)
                                       MY FRAINTRAIN
                              so please, feel free to add me
                                      message me whatever
                

Id. (all text and formatting as in original). J.S. testified before the District Court at a preliminary injunction hearing that she created this profile because she was "mad" at McGonigle due to the way he treated her during her February 20, 2007 dress code violation, stating that she believed he handled the situation inappropriately and yelled at her unnecessarily, and that the profile was simply a joke between her and her friends. She stated that she included in the profile things she had heard other students say about McGonigle. At her later deposition, J.S. testified that she and K.L. created the profile thinking "it would be comical" because "it's outrageous," and not really for any other reason.

J.S. and K.L. initially set the MySpace profile as "public," which made it accessible by anyone who knew the URL or found it by searching MySpace for a term the profile contained. At school on Monday, March 19, 2007, the day after the profile was created, numerous friends at the Middle School approached J.S. to talk about the profile, generally saying they found it funny. J.S. testified that she made the profile "private" after school that evening, so it could be viewed only by those people whom she and K.L. invited to be "m-hoe=]'s" MySpace online friends. The two students then granted "friend" status to approximately twenty-two other students. Because the Middle School computers block access to MySpace, students could have viewed the profile only from an off-campus location. McGonigle testified that he first learned of the profile on that Monday.

On the morning of Tuesday, March 20, 2007, a student, B, approached McGonigle, informed him of the profile, and told him it contained disturbing comments about him. McGonigle asked B to try to find out who created the profile, and afterwards attempted to find the profile himself from his office computer, which did not block access to MySpace. Unable to locate the profile, McGonigle called MySpace, Inc., which told him it could not direct him to a specific profile without the URL. By Tuesday afternoon, B returned to McGonigle and advised him that J.S. had created the profile. McGonigle asked B to bring him a printout of the MySpace profile.

B brought a printed copy of the profile to McGonigle at the Middle School on the morning of Wednesday, March 21, 2007. To the best of McGonigle's knowledge, this was the only copy of the profile that entered the school. Because the printout contained the profile's URL, McGonigle apparently was able to open and view the profile directly from the MySpace website, despite the students having made it private. J.S. was absent from school on that particular day, so McGonigle was unable to discuss the profile with her at that time. McGonigle then approached Superintendent Joyce Romberger and Director of Technology Susan Schneider-Morgan. The three met for approximately ten or fifteen minutes, reviewed the profile, and concluded that it violated the School District's Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") because it violated copyright laws in misappropriating McGonigle's photograph from the School District's website without permission. See id. at 39-55. Romberger and Schneider-Morgan did not discuss whether the statements in the profile were true. Although Romberger was required to report any misconduct by the principal to the Board of School Directors, she did not disclose any of the allegations in the profile because she believed it consisted of "lies" and "malicious comments" made by students angry at McGonigle.

McGonigle next showed the profile to two guidance counselors, Debra Frain (his wife) and Michelle Guers. He contacted MySpace, Inc. a second time to inquire whether he could learn the identity of the profile's creator based on the URL, and MySpace informed him that he could not, absent a court order. By the end of Wednesday, McGonigle sought to discipline the students responsible for the profile's creation and had decided that, in making false accusations about a school staff member, the profile was a level-four infraction under the Middle School's discipline code, as contained in the 2006-2007 Student — Parent Handbook (the "Handbook"). Id. at 65-66. McGonigle testified that he did not believe the profile launched accusations against him, but rather that it was an imposter profile, purporting to be created by him.

On Thursday, March 22, 2007, J.S. returned to school and McGonigle called her and K.L. to his office to meet with him and Guers regarding the profile. Although J.S....

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