Ohio teen, school officials settle Web site lawsuit

The Associated Press

04.14.98

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CLEVELAND -- A suburban school district will pay $30,000 to a student who was suspended for posting a web site where he belittled his high school band leader.

In exchange for the payment, Sean O'Brien has agreed to drop a federal lawsuit claiming the Westlake school board and five district officials violated his First Amendment right to free speech, said Kenneth Myers, O'Brien's lawyer. The lawsuit had asked for $550,000 in damages.

O'Brien said Monday night he was satisfied with the settlement.

"I'm happy that we got this whole thing resolved and I'm happy I'm back in school and the whole thing is over," he said.

O'Brien said his attorneys would get half the settlement and his share will go toward college expenses. As for his relationship with the band director, "It's just like it's a businesslike thing. I go in, I play my instrument and I go out," he said.

Myers said $2,000 of O'Brien's share would be donated by mutual agreement of his attorneys and his family to the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C., and to the New York office of the American Civil Liberties Union. The center works on student free press issues.

John Britton, a lawyer for the Westlake school district, said the settlement still needs to be approved by the school board. That should happen within the next 10 days, he said.

O'Brien, a 17-year-old baritone horn player at Westlake High School, had several confrontations with his band teacher, Raymond Walczuk, and built the web site through his home computer to take out his frustrations.

O'Brien posted a yearbook photo of Walczuk along with the teacher's address and home telephone number.

The youth called his teacher "an overweight middle-aged man who doesn't like to get haircuts" and accused him favoring some students over others.

The site was available for about three weeks in February and early March until O'Brien shut it down.

When district officials learned about the web site, they suspended O'Brien for 10 days for being disrespectful to a teacher.

O'Brien sued, and Senior U.S. District Judge John M. Manos last month ordered the school to reinstate the youth, who had served eight days of the suspension. The judge also told school officials not to restrict what O'Brien did with his own computer.

Superintendent Beverly Reep sent a letter of apology dated April 8 to the student's father, Vincent O'Brien, in which she said the suspension would be removed from the youth's record.

The district is on break and a call for Reep was referred to Britton. He said Reep's letter was not connected to the settlement.

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