Doninger v. Niehoff

A high school student, Avery Doninger (plaintiff), was one of the student-council members responsible for organizing an annual event featuring music bands. Student-council members were informed by the principal of Lewis Mills High School and the superintendent of the school district (collectively, the school officials) (defendants) that the event would have to be relocated or rescheduled. The student-council members sent an email to a large number of people, urging the recipients to contact the school officials and ask to hold the event as scheduled. The school officials received a large number of telephone calls and emails from people about the event. The principal spoke to Doninger in the hallway at school that day. Doninger claimed that the principal told her the event was canceled, which the principal denied. The principal expressed disappointment that student-council members and class officers did not work cooperatively with their faculty advisor and the administration to reschedule the event. The principal asked Doninger to send a corrective email. That night, Doninger posted a message on her public blog using offensive language to announce falsely that the school officials had canceled the event. In the following days, the school officials received more phone calls and email messages, missed or arrived late to school-related activities, and met with student-council members to reschedule the event. The principal learned of Doninger’s blog post and concluded that this conduct disqualified her from running for senior-class secretary. Doninger’s mother (plaintiff) brought suit against the school officials in the district court and argued that disqualifying Doninger from running for senior-class secretary violated free-speech rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Doninger’s mother moved for a preliminary injunction to void the election for senior-class secretary and force the school to hold a new election or to allow Doninger to have the same title, honors, and obligations as the elected senior-class secretary. The district court denied the motion.