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Legal settlement is reached over student's Facebook comments about teacher

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A former Florida high school student scored what her attorneys call a victory for the First Amendment last week with the end of her two-year legal battle over her Facebook comments about a teacher.

Katherine "Katie" Evans' three-day suspension from Pembroke Pines Charter High School for the comments will be wiped from her school record as part of a settlement agreement reached in her federal lawsuit against her high school principal. In addition, she will receive $15,000 in legal fees and $1 in nominal damages, her attorneys said.

Evans was suspended in November 2007 after her principal, Peter Bayer, learned she had created a Facebook group describing her Advanced Placement English teacher as "the worst teacher I've ever met." Bayer deemed the honor student's actions as "cyberbullying/harassment (of) a staff member" and placed her in a less rigorous English class, according to Evans' federal lawsuit.

With the legal support of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Evans sued Bayer in late 2008, arguing her First Amendment right to free speech had been violated with the school's sanctions. The lawsuit became one of a growing number of cases across the nation raising questions of where a school's authority begins and ends when it comes to students' speech on the Internet.

In a pretrial ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Garber determined in February that Evans' speech was constitutionally protected, finding it was off-campus speech that did not cause any disruptions at school and was not lewd, vulgar, threatening or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior.

Evans, now a 20-year-old University of Florida student, had been ready to go to trial until the settlement was reached, said Matthew

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