School Allowed To Punish Student For Calling Officials 'Douchebags' On Her Blog

from the eye-of-the-beholder dept

There have been plenty of lawsuits, with widely varying results, concerning the ability of schools to punish or sanction students for activity off-campus. The law here is very much in flux, and the different rulings often depend very much on the specific details of the acts in question. In this latest case, a student who was running for Senior Class Secretary was officially barred from running, from speaking at an assembly for the candidates, and then from accepting the position after she was elected anyway... because she had complained publicly about what happened with a "battle-of-the-bands" event called Jamfest. The details on what happened with Jamfest are a bit disputed, but either way, the student, Avery Doninger, wrote up a blog post that referred to school officials as "douchebags," concerning their actions related to Jamfest, which resulted in the school's actions over the student council election.

The court doesn't appear to have a problem with the school's action, and lawyer John E. Ottaviani, who wrote up the post linked above seems to agree. I'm not so certain. The school seems to have blocked both some of her speech, punished her for her speech and then blocked others from speaking out as well (banning other students from wearing t-shirts in support of Doninger). Yes, schools have the right to discipline students for violating policy, but it seems that a line is crossed when it involves barring expression, which seems clear happened here.

Filed Under: douchebags, free speech, students

Judge Decides That Calling Someone A Douchebag Is Okay... So Long As It's Funny

from the laugh,-people dept

Last year, a series of lawsuits were filed over the publishing of a book based on the hit website Hot Chicks with Douchebags. Some of the "hot chicks" and at least one of the "douchebags" claimed it was libelous. However, in a rather entertaining ruling, a judge has dismissed the case filed by three of the women, noting that after he "carefully scrutinized" the book, he determined that the use of the term "douchebag" along with the various photographs was "used for humorous social commentary" -- making it perfectly legal. So, kids, remember when calling someone names, make sure to do so in a way that is funny and used for social commentary. Otherwise you might not only look like a douchebag, but you might end up in court.

Filed Under: defamation, douchebags, parody, satire

Suing Over Being Called A Douchebag Might Just Get More People To Think You're A Douchebag

from the just-saying... dept

There's a somewhat popular (and quite amusing) blog called Hot Chicks with Douchebags. It is... well, pretty much what you'd expect (and might not be a link you want to click-through while at work) -- a bunch of photos of attractive women in the company of guys who, well, you can figure it out. Anyway, I had no idea that they had come out with a book recently, but apparently some of the folks included in the book are none too happy about it. Three of the alleged "hot chicks" in the book have sued the book's author and publisher, and now one of the alleged "douchebags" has also sued, claiming libel. Of course, once again, it seems like this is the sort of thing where suing only puts a lot more attention on the fact that some folks consider the guy to be a douchebag in the first place. Besides, considering that douchebag, in this context, is pretty clearly a statement of opinion rather than fact (no one actually thinks he's literally a bag for douches), it's difficult to see where the libel is. In fact, I'd say that suing over being included in a book like this seems, well... ah, well, you can figure it out.

Filed Under: douchebags, hot chicks, libel, streisand effect