http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2557801948-213 10:29 PM ET 12/28/98 Judge Backs Student's Web Rights Judge Backs Student's Web Rights CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) _ A high school student's free speech rights were violated when he was suspended for posting a personal Web page critical of his school, a federal judge ruled Monday. The case is one of the first to reach the courts concerning students' right to free speech on the Internet, said Deborah Jacobs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of the student, Brandon Beussink. U.S. District Court Judge Rodney Sippel issued a preliminary injunction against Woodland School District in Marble Hill, about 100 miles south of St. Louis. The injunction prohibits the district from using the suspension against Beussink in grade and attendance calculations. It also bars the district from punishing Beussink or restricting his ability to post his home page on the World Wide Web. ``Dislike or being upset by the content of a student's speech is not an acceptable justification for limiting student speech,'' Sippel wrote in his opinion. In February, Beussink, 17, and his sister established a personal home page on the Internet, using their parent's home computer for the project. Using occasionally vulgar language, the home page criticized the school's official Web site. It also urged visitors to send e-mail to the principal and inform a teacher that the Web site is bad. ____________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The NEW Web Consultants Association FORUMS and CHAT: Register Today at: http://just4u.com/forums/ Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants Give the Gift of Life This Year... Just4U Stop Smoking Support forum - helping smokers for over three years-tell a friend: http://just4u.com/forums/ To get 500 Banner Ads for FREE go to http://www.linkbuddies.com/start.go?id=111261 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
