Appellate court asked if schools can punish MySpace parodies

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — U.S. appellate judges in Philadelphia hope to sort out the thorny question of whether schools can discipline students for MySpace parodies created off-site when they rehear appeals that led to conflicting rulings.

Fourteen judges on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Thursday in a pair of MySpace cases from Pennsylvania.

A three-judge panel from the 3rd Circuit this year upheld the suspension of a Schuylkill County eighth-grader who posted sexually explicit material along with her principal’s photograph on a fake MySpace page.

But the same day, another panel said Mercer County schools cannot reach into a family’s home and police the Internet. That case involved a MySpace parody of a principal done on a home computer.