A Washington State District Court has ruled that the speech codes of the Spokane Falls Community College are unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Sheeran v. Shea. Beth Sheeran, a Christian pro-life student at the college, ran into the unconstitutional codes when she tried to hold a pro-life event on campus. Her event consisted merely of handing out flyers and displaying posters, yet the College told her that her display would be “discriminatory” and ordered her to present the opposing point of view. When Sheeran requested to hold the event again, the school threatened her with expulsion.

The college’s speech restriction required permission prior to distributing flyers, and imposed unreasonable regulations about hosting a speaker. Not only did students need prior approval to host a speaker, but they also had to obtain this approval thirty days in advance.

The most preposterous school speech code required students to present opposing points of view. David French of the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom captured the absurdity of this condition by observing, “Imagine a requirement that the Democratic party distribute Republican talking points and rebuttals at the Democratic National Convention.” http://www.thefire.org/article/10329.html

The college also operated an Orwellian “Stop the Hate” program. Its flyer for this program read, “Bias incidents and hate crimes need to be reported. Often victims feel isolated, marginalized, and/or terrorized.” No matter that student Shereen could have felt “marginalized” by the threat of expulsion for her attempts to present her views. The official college flyer defined a “Bias incident” as “An act of conduct, speech, or expression to which a bias motive (relating to race, religion, disability status, ethnicity/national origin, gender or sexual orientation) is evident as a contributing factor regardless of whether the act is criminal” (emphasis added). http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/StopHateProgram.pdf

Beth Sheeran’s student flyer merely presented statistics about abortion, supported by familiar sources including the New York Times, Washington Times, and Fox News. Her flyer even ended with the opening line of the Declaration of Independence. http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/SheeranLiterature.pdf

Earlier, in April 2009, the Court had enjoined some of the speech policies. On September 25, the Court settled Shereen’s lawsuit by requiring a revision of the unconstitutional portions that make up most of the “Stop the Hate” program. The Court also required a review and revision of the college’s other speech policies. Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker from the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, said “We are pleased that the college officials have agreed to change their unconstitutional policies and programs so that pro-life students can voice their viewpoints, just like any other group of students on campus.”

The world then found out that the blogger was another woman, a fashion student who had seen Cohen at social functions and events in New York City. Once revealed, the blogger apologized, but then struck back at Google with a $15 million lawsuit for disclosing her identity.

This case has sent shock waves through the underground world of internet bullies, vandals and deceivers. Her defenders insist that she has a First Amendment right in anonymous speech, citing the Federalist Papers as an example of anonymous articles by our Founding Fathers. But many disagree, citing numerous other instances of harmful cyberbulling, a general term for internet mischief that intimidates, harasses, or unfairly ridicules others. Increasingly, courts are siding with the victims of cyberbulling.