for Web site critical of school
and its administrators
Student punished
for Web site critical of school
and its administrators
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer
CHRISTINE VARNO Ryan Dwyer, 15, Oceanport, sits at his computer in his home on Trinity Place, where the Web site about Maple Place School was created.
Oceanport — Ryan Dwyer, 15, of Trinity Place, is in a battle for his and other students’ First Amendment rights.
On Dec. 18, Dwyer and his family filed a lawsuit against the Oceanport School District, two of its administrators and its Board of Education in federal district court in Newark. The lawsuit charges the district and its representatives with violating Dwyer’s constitutional rights by punishing him for creating a Web site that was critical of the school and some members of the faculty and administration. There were also positive comments about some of the teachers at the school on the site.
On April 1, Dwyer launched his Web site "Welcome to the Anti-Maple Place — Your Friendly Environment," which he created and posted from his home computer. He said his purpose in creating the site was to give students at Maple Place, where he was a student at the time, a voice. In the week the site was up on the internet it had 450 visitors, with the vast majority believed to be students from the school.
"I did not make the site for teachers; it was just for students and myself to have a voice," Dwyer said. "It was for me and my friends to have fun."
According to the lawsuit, on April 7, Oceanport Superintendent James DiGiovanna, contacted Dwyer’s mother Roseanne, who works at the district’s Wolfhill School, and informed her that Ryan was suspected of creating a Web site that "might have criminal content."
Along with his mother being notified, Ryan Dwyer was called to Principal John Amato’s office where he was confronted with a printout of portions of the Web site by Amato and DiGiovanna, and told that the site’s publication was a criminal matter and the police were involved, according to the court filing.
Shortly after Ryan went to the principal’s office, his father, Kevin Dwyer, arrived at the school.
Following discussions with the principal and superintendent, the Dwyers agreed to take the site down.
Kevin Dwyer says he now regrets that decision.
"We stand behind Ryan," Roseanne Dwyer said. "We do not feel he did anything wrong."
"They [school officials] blew everything out of proportion," Ryan Dwyer said. "I was just showing that kids do have rights."
The site included a "Guest Book" page that allowed visitors to leave their names, e-mail addresses and comments.
The page read, "please sign my guest book, but NO PROFANITY AT ALL!!!!!!! NO PROFANITY (that’s curse words and bad words) and no threats to any teacher or person EVER. …"
"I was suspended for five days, kicked off the baseball team for a month and wasn’t allowed to go on my school class trip to Philadelphia," Ryan Dwyer said. "They never even told me what rule I broke."
According to Dwyer’s attorney, Grayson Barber, Princeton, who is a cooperating attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey, there was no rule that Ryan broke.
"Everything he said and did was legally protected by the First Amendment," Barber said. "They punished him for nothing."
Dwyer acknowledged creating the Web site, but denied writing any messages that school officials found offensive.
He noted that students who were found to have written something offensive received lower punishments than he did.
"A few kids wrote some stuff on the Web site and received only one-day suspensions," Ryan Dwyer said.
The Dwyers requested a meeting to appeal the disciplinary measures their son faced and DiGiovanna responded with a letter saying a meeting with the board would be arranged.
"They said he was being accused for his involvement in a Web site," Kevin Dwyer said. "He didn’t do anything wrong."
Both Kevin and Roseanne Dwyer said they never intended on the matter going this far, but they did everything else they could do.
"We didn’t want to do this [file a lawsuit]," Roseanne Dwyer said. "We went to the school officials, went to meetings and really tried to work things out."
At the April 14 meeting where they appealed the district’s disciplinary decision, the Dwyers told the board they felt their son was being unjustly punished for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech and asked, "What law or school rule did Ryan violate?"
In an April 16 letter from the board, the Dwyers were told that the district’s attorney, Anthony P. Sciarrillo, would contact them to respond to the questions they raised.
According to the Dwyers, that same day they received a letter from Sciarrillo saying he was asked to respond to the statement and questions and anticipated doing so within 10 days.
According to the lawsuit, the Dwyers never received that letter.
Barber said Dwyer’s treatment by the school district is an example of the post-Columbine atmosphere in America.
She said she took the case to establish that students have First Amendment rights.
"If you want to make the school a safe environment for students to thrive in, you need to encourage them and listen to them," Barber said. "Instead of listening to kids they suppressed their speech."
Dwyer, now a freshman at Shore Regional High School, said, "I want to do this because I want them to realize they did something wrong. I don’t want to see this happen to another kid."
DiGiovanna, Amato and Sciarrillo all declined to comment on the matter, including identifying the rule that Dwyer was punished for breaking.