Missouri teen who criticized school on Web page sues over suspension

The Associated Press

08.28.98

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CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- A southeast Missouri youth has sued his school for suspending him over his criticism of the school on his Web page.

How the right of free speech extends to the Internet is part of the suit.

In February, Brandon Beussink, 16, was a junior at Woodland High School in Marble Hill, Mo., when he and his sister established a personal home page on the Internet. Over a weekend, they used their parent's home computer for the project.

Using occasionally vulgar language, the home page criticized the school's official Web site, the principal and the faculty. It also urged visitors to send e-mail to the principal and inform a teacher that the Web site is bad.

School administrators responded with a lesson in censorship, said the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit yesterday for Brandon and his mother, Nadean Beussink.

"The law is clear that schools cannot interfere with what students say on their own time outside of school," said Deborah Jacobs, the ACLU's executive director in St. Louis. "This includes the Internet. Brandon's comments on the Internet are protected, just as they would be had he made them in an underground newspaper, at the park, on a street corner or at the mall."

Ronald Wene, superintendent for Woodland IV School District, told free! that school officials would not comment on pending litigation. The school district's attorney, Kenneth C. McManaman, did not return phone calls placed by free!

According to The New York Times, McManaman wrote a letter to Jacobs in May saying: "There is no doubt in my mind that the school district had the right, authority and even obligation to prohibit this sort of activity by Brandon Beussink. Instead of continuing to whine, I would suggest Mr. Beussink take his punishment like a man, get back to school and start behaving like he should in the classroom."

The Times also quoted McManaman in a later interview as saying: "If the ACLU thinks they can come down here and win a case, let them come."

The Web page, entitled "Brittney & Brandon's Kick A-- Home Page!!," read: "Please visit our F----D UP High School, 'Home of the f----d up faculty members from HELL!' Don't forget to e-mail our … principal and tell Delma Farell that her page sucks… . Why our school is f----d up, you ask? Well, where do I start… let me see … number one, the students are treated like they are lower than dirt, and are constantly reminded of this. If one of the faculty members do something which can be upheld by the court, a new rule pops up in the school policy. No one knows where it came from, but it seems as if it's been there for ages. Then they send the people who it affected apology letters!! What a bunch of s---!! Well, I guess you don't want to know the whole story (I sure wouldn't), so I guess that is enough about that!"

Brandon removed his home page from the Internet after school officials complained.

School officials suspended him for 10 days and then failed him for the semester as a result of his absences, the ACLU suit said.

As a result, Brandon must re-earn lost credits and will be unable to graduate with his classmates next spring, the suit added.

The suit asks for a judge to order the removal of Brandon's suspension record, restore his status as a Woodland High senior and let him make up missed school work. The suit will be heard in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau.

Brandon, in a statement, said his school "should practice what it preaches."

"We study history and we study the Constitution, but the school doesn't seem to think that it applies to them."

Marble Hill is about 100 miles south of St. Louis.

-- First Amendment Center staff contributed to this report.