LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Dr. Jerome Melvin, superintendent of the North Syracuse School District in New York, says of the decision, "It's really undermining the effectiveness of the teacher as an instructor.... What people don't understand is what happens away from the school like that can come into the school and disrupt the school environment."

A father of one of the accused students declared that "Facebook has nothing to do with school. Kids have the right to hate a teacher." He then refused his 12-year-old daughter to take part in the group detention.

The incident could go before the Supreme Court, as it involves the students' First Amendment rights outside of school in an Internet forum. Earlier this month, two panels of judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit made conflicting decisions on similar lawsuits. Both cases involved Pennsylvania students suspended from school for creating MySpace pages mocking their principals. In one case, the panel ruled in favor of the student, and in the other case, the school.

Attorney Anthony G. Sanchez of the Pittsburgh-based firm Andrews and Price, says "There needs to be specific guidance as to what a school district can and cannot do when off-campus a student directs lewd, vulgar language to school communities about a school individual."   

Sanchez says that with the rise of the Internet, rulings regarding students' free speech has changed. Sanchez says that speech created off-campus and spread online can still have on-campus consequences.

Sanchez cited a previous case involving a different student, saying that if the  student created a hard copy of the profile he created online and posted it on a bulletin board at school, the ruling might have been different, even though the content was the same.