Mark Wynar v. Douglas County School District

With the advent of the Internet and in the wake of school shootings at Columbine, Santee, Newtown and many others, school administrators face the daunting task of evaluating potential threats of violence and keeping their students safe without impinging on their constitutional rights. It is a feat like tightrope balancing, where an error in judgment can lead to a tragic result. Courts have long dealt with the tension between students’ First Amendment rights and “the special characteristics of the school environment.” Hazel-wood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 266 , 108 S.Ct. 562 , 98 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988). But the challenge for administrators is made all the more difficult because, outside of the official school environment, students are instant messaging, texting, emailing, Twittering, Tumblring, and otherwise communicating electronically, sometimes about subjects that threaten the safety of the school environment. At the same time, school officials must take care not to overreact and to take into account the creative juices and often startling writings of the students.

In this case, Landon Wynar, a student at Douglas High School, engaged in a string of increasingly…