U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin on Tuesday refused to lift a preliminary injunction that prevents school officials from enforcing a ban on the popular rubber bracelets. In April, she sided with two middle school girls who were threatened with discipline for wearing the bracelets, finding the slogan is not vulgar or likely to cause a disturbance.

Easton Area School District officials last month asked McLaughlin to lift her injunction while the district’s appeal before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending. They claimed the injunction leaves the district with no guidance on how to revise its dress code for the 2011-12 school year and threatens administrators’ ability to maintain order in the schools.

A middle-school student, annoyed after being disciplined by her principal for violating the school dress code, vents her frustration by posting a crude MySpace profile on the Internet parodying the principal. The profile, which the student created entirely from home and made available to a small group of friends, includes a photo of the principal but not his name or school. The profile only comes onto school grounds at the behest of the principal. Nevertheless, once the identity of the profile’s author is discovered, the school suspends her from classes for ten days.

Those are the facts of a case, JS v. Blue Mountain School District [PDF], recently decided in the student’s favor by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The case squarely presented an issue increasingly confronted by schools and their students: How far can public schools can go in punishing students for speech that they post on the Internet outside of school? On one side are the school districts and school board associations, which argue that schools should be permitted to police their students’ speech no matter where it occurs if the speech is about the school. On the other are groups like the ACLU, which believe putting such far-reaching authority into the hands of school administrators impermissibly infringes on students’ First Amendment right to free speech.

The Third Circuit, unfortunately, did not provide a clear answer to the question. While the Court, sitting en banc, did hold that schools cannot punish students for off-campus speech simply because it is lewd, vulgar, or indecent, the majority stopped short of deciding whether schools can punish students for off-campus speech if it causes a material and substantial disruption inside the school. In a footnote, the majority said it did not need to reach that issue because the parody MySpace profile did not cause any disruption inside the school nor could it have reasonably led school officials to forecast substantial disruption in the school. The “material and substantial disruption” test was created by the US Supreme Court in its 1969 decision Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District to protect students’ free-speech rights in school while providing some leeway for school officials to maintain order and accomplish their pedagogical mission.

Although the issue of whether the so-called Tinker standard can be used to curtail students’ out-of-school speech has officially been left open by the Third Circuit, there were five votes for a more protective standard for off-campus speech. Four judges joined a concurring opinion by Judge D. Brooks Smith stating the view that students should have the same right as any other person in the community to speak outside of school. Under that standard, students’ Facebook status updates, twitter posts, and even old-fashioned letters to the editor could not be censored by school administrators unless they could show that their actions were narrowly tailored to a compelling governmental interest and represented the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. That is a much tougher test for school districts to meet than the “material and substantial disruption” test, but it is the only standard that adequately protects the free-speech rights of public-school students.

As Judge Smith recognized in his concurring opinion, allowing schools to apply the Tinker standard to out-of-school speech would have “ominous implications”: “Doing so would empower schools to regulate students’ expressive activity no matter where it takes place, when it occurs, or what subject matter it involves—so long as it causes a substantial disruption at school.” Indeed, the Second Circuit, which has applied the Tinker standard to off-campus speech where it was reasonably foreseeable that the speech would come to the attention of school officials, upheld the decision of a school district to bar a student from running for senior class secretary after she criticized school administrators on her personal blog. The student was not permitted to serve as secretary even after she was elected by her classmates as a write-in candidate.

Public schools have a responsibility to teach students about their constitutional rights. Overriding the votes of the senior class or punishing students simply because they posted critical comments about school officials on the Internet sends the wrong message about how our Bill of Rights is supposed to work. School officials who act like Big Brother or retaliate against students who criticize them do a disservice to their students and to the Constitution.

Opinions expressed in JURIST’s Hotline are the sole responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST’s editors, staff, or the University of Pittsburgh.

Team 4 investigator Paul Van Osdol reported that the e-mail in question was circulated last summer while the federal government was trying to contain the massive Gulf oil spill. It showed an image of Obama walking along a Gulf beach with the caption, “Another tar ball washed up on the shore.” In a memo, a Centers for Rehab Services official called it “an inappropriate e-mail that contained political and discriminatory content.”
The lawsuit said the e-mail led the company to fire Deborah Bonanno and James Sprung, who received the e-mail and forwarded it to co-workers.

In court papers, an attorney for Bonanno and Sprung said, “The motivation behind CRS’ termination was to stifle (the employees’) freedom of expression on a matter of public concern” — namely, the Gulf disaster.
Vic Walczak, the ACLU’s legal director in Pennsylvania, said employees have “very few” rights to sound off at work.
Walczak said he had not seen the lawsuits, but he said the Constitutional right to free speech does not apply when someone uses a workplace computer.

“They can say, ‘We don’t want any political discussion, we don’t want any religious discussion, we don’t want any discussion of Democrats, you’re free to talk about Republicans.’ Again, while you couldn’t do that if you were the government, when you’re a private employer, you call the shots,” Walczak said.
Companies also have the right to control some personal behavior outside the workplace.
A spokeswoman for UPMC — which is affiliated with Centers for Rehab Services — did not comment on the lawsuit but said that UPMC has a long-standing zero-tolerance policy for e-mails that are racially, sexually or otherwise offensive.

You know that photo of you, bleary-eyed and smiley, red plastic cup in hand? You know the one. You look like a hot, drunk mess, your friend keeps tagging you in it, it’s on Facebook for the whole Internet to see? That one. I bet you’d be having words with your tag-happy little pal if the UA administration were keeping tabs on your profile.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, much of the discussion at the National Conference on Law and Higher Education centered around issues presented by Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. These issues have colleges wondering if there is a need to police the Internet in order to monitor what their students and faculty members are doing or posting online.

In May 2006, Stacey Snyder was a student at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, just days away from her graduation at the time. Then the university denied her a teaching degree. The university claimed it was because a photo on her MySpace profile. Remember, it was 2006 and people still used MySpace.

The photo in question was captioned “Drunken Pirate” and featured Snyder in a pirate hat and drinking from a red plastic cup. According to the university, it promoted underage drinking. Snyder was 25 years old then, and working as a student teacher at a high school. She maintained the photo was taken off campus and after school hours at a costume party.

Snyder sued Millersville University for refusing her a degree, citing it as a violation of her right to free speech. She eventually earned an English degree instead. A federal judge ruled against her in 2008. According to The Washington Post, university officials said the case was not an issue of First Amendment rights, but of performance. The photo, they said, was just one example of many that Snyder did not deserve a degree in education.

Some colleges have codes of conduct and policies pertaining specifically to social media. Concordia University expects students to “assume the responsibility for the content posted and are subject to sanctions” if that content violates Concordia’s conduct code.

These policies also sometimes attempt to address online harassment, especially in response to cases like Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student who killed himself after his roommate secretly recorded him with another man on a webcam. The problem is defining what online bullying is, and where to draw the line between offensive speech and speech that legitimately interferes with someone else’s education.

Cases like Snyder’s or Clementi’s, and discussions like the one at the National Conference on Law and Higher Education, ask: How should a university babysit what its students and employees post on the Internet? Should there be any obligation to do so?

I don’t actually know how much of a reach a social media policy should have. While universities wrestle with the wording of policies that people won’t read anyway, students ought to take responsibility on an individual basis, of their own accord. You’ve had a few too many if you think an employer should be able to find your record for tequila shots via Google.

There are existing precautions for making sure anything that the university, or a future employer, could deem inappropriate and against any code of conduct is hidden. Set your profile to private. Google yourself. If you can still find your Facebook, be more private. The same applies to every hash tag you use on Twitter, each photo you reblog on Tumblr, everything.

But more importantly, remember that privacy settings only go so far. The fact that university administrations are beginning to wonder if they are obligated to include social media clauses in their student and faculty conduct policies should be an embarrassment to all of us. Only the most naive people expect you to avoid all college kid shenanigans. But everyone should expect you to keep them offline.

For the sake of making sure you don’t lose your degree because you had to be a drunken pirate, think before you post.
— Kristina Bui is the opinions editor of the Arizona Daily Wildcat. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.

Like many of her peers, Hempfield Area senior Ali Weatherton uses the social networking website Facebook nearly every day.

“The first thing I do when I come home is check Facebook,” said Weatherton, 17, who called the site “addictive.”

But though Facebook makes it easy to keep in touch with friends, Weatherton has discovered that the constant connection has its downside.

For most of her junior year, Weatherton was harassed online by a jealous former friend and her allies, who posted insults on Facebook and made fun of the clothes Weatherton wore to school.

“It got really embarrassing,” she said.

Though the bullies did most of the tormenting through Facebook, their reach was not confined to the Internet. The stress caused Weatherton to suffer seizures, and she was afraid to attend school activities.

“It had a real impact on my life,” Weatherton said. “I didn’t want to go to school some days.”

According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study, children age 8 to 18 spent more than seven and a half hours a day using entertainment media, including computers and smartphones. But as young people live more and more of their social lives in the realm of technology, the negative elements of middle and high school life are following them there.

While most schools forbid students from using cell phones and sites such as Facebook during school hours, educators are increasingly dealing with the fallout of online bullying and what teens term “drama” that begins off campus. There are criminal laws against true threats, stalking and harassment, but bullying that does not go far enough for police to step in still can have a devastating impact.

In October, after a spate of highly publicized suicides by students who had been bullied, the U.S. Department of Education warned schools that they could face sanctions if they fail to prevent bullying based on discrimination.

But though they are under pressure to stop bullies, school officials face a dilemma, because students have First Amendment rights that limit schools’ power over what they say off campus.

“One of the top problems facing school districts all over the state is controlling technology,” said David Andrews, an Altoona lawyer whose firm, Andrews and Beard, has provided legal advice for more than 100 school districts in Pennsylvania.

Andrews has advised districts about social networking policies for students and teachers, but because the technology is new and the law unclear, many districts have struggled with the issue.

“I think that the law is absolutely confusing right now,” said Sara Rose, a staff attorney in the Pittsburgh office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which advocates against limits on freedom of speech. “The courts are all over the map on where to go.”

While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that schools can punish students for speech that disrupts education, there is less precedent for cases that involve off-campus speech on the Internet.

“Schools and students really need some guidance from the courts,” Rose said.

That guidance may come from a decision expected this year in a pair of cases reviewed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

In one of the cases, Layshock v. Hermitage School District, Justin Layshock, a Mercer County high school student, created a parody profile of his principal on the social networking site MySpace. When the principal learned about the parody, which used crude language to make fun of his size, Layshock was suspended.

With representation provided by the ACLU, Layshock and his parents sued, arguing that the school had exceeded its reach because the Web page was created off campus. In 2007, a federal district judge found in the Layshocks’ favor, and in February of this year a panel of three judges from the 3rd Circuit agreed.

The facts of the case were nearly identical to one involving Blue Mountain School District, but in that 2007 case a district judge and a 3rd Circuit panel found in favor of the district. Because of the contradiction, both cases were argued before the full 3rd Circuit court in June. It has yet to issue a decision.

Meanwhile, because cyberbullying is more serious than lampooning faculty, schools are doing their best to combat it while treading lightly on students’ rights and their parents’ rights to be disciplinarians at home.

One strategy is education. Richard Shaheen, a senior supervisory special agent with the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office, gives presentations at Southwest Pennsylvania schools to make students and their parents aware of the dangers children and teens can encounter when they use technology.

“We had bullying growing up. We didn’t have cyberbullying,” he told a group of parents gathered at Franklin Regional Senior High School in Murrysville.

Recalling an instance where a dozen middle school students in another district got into a fight after texting insults to each other all day, Shaheen said, “Nobody got a break all day long. Because we have the ability to affect someone’s life 24/7, these kids never get away from it.”

Robin Pynos, Greater Latrobe’s director of technology, said her district is working to educate students about bullying and teachers about Facebook.

“We do block these websites,” Pynos said, “but, as you know, they go home and use them. Unless it comes into the school system, with fighting or word that there’s going to be a fight, we can’t really do anything.”

Still, Pynos encouraged students to go to a teacher if they have been bullied online.

“If it gets brought to a teacher’s attention, I think they should step in and deal with it,” Pynos said, explaining that, even if a student cannot be suspended, a phone call to the bully’s parents may help.

“A lot of times, if kids know an adult’s been made aware, they’ll back off,” Pynos said.

It’s also important to recognize that the Internet is not all bad, said Sidney Alvarez, communications director for the Avonworth School District.

Avonworth school computers block Facebook, and the district is educating students about cyberbullying and working on an advisory policy for off-campus student computer use.

But because students — and their families — are living more of their lives online, Avonworth is making its own forays into social networking, with an official Facebook page that showcases student work and communicates with district residents.

“We think of it as a billboard,” Alvarez said. “Technology can be a wonderful thing, but you have to use caution, and that’s what we do.”

Ali Weatherton, the Hempfield senior, continues to use Facebook, and she said she has learned to ignore online bullies. For her senior project, she is working to educate younger students about cyberbullying and Internet safety, in the hopes that they don’t suffer as she did.

But Weatherton has a 7-year-old niece, and many of the girl’s first-grade classmates already have Facebook accounts.

“I’m really trying my hardest not to get her on it,” Weatherton said. “I think it is more drama than you should have to deal with.”

Thanks to the ACLU, you can now say all seven of George Carlin’s seven dirty words in Pennsylvania without fear of being fined by the state police:

Travelers and residents in Pennsylvania, feel free to break open that swear jar — you no longer need it to make bail. This week, the Pennsylvania State Police reached a settlement with the ACLU that retires them from policing the dictionary. This, after 770 people were cited in a one-year period, and faced a fine and potential jail time, for speaking words the state police deemed obscene.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit in May on behalf of Lona Scarpa of Luzerne County, who called a motorcyclist an “asshole” after he swerved too close to her and another pedestrian. When she reported the incident to the police, Ms. Scarpa found herself charged with disorderly conduct for swearing and faced a possible $300 fine and 90 days in jail.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and many other courts, have made it very clear that profanity — including dirty words, foul language, and rude gestures — is protected speech. Nevertheless, an ACLU investigation revealed that the state police had, on average, issued more than two such citations per day.

“Using profanity toward someone, whether an officer or not, is just not one of those things that you can put someone in jail for,” explains Mary Catherine Roper, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “It may not be very smart, but you have a constitutional right to do that.”

School districts nationwide have their eyes on a federal court case in Pennsylvania, which will address whether students should be allowed to wear breast-cancer awareness bracelets that have become a controversy in multiple states.

The bracelets — which proclaim “I (heart symbol) boobies!” — have been banned in some districts. U.S. District Judge Mary McLaughlin will hear oral arguments on Feb. 18.

“Anytime a case based on a First Amendment free-speech case crops up, then other school districts are going to look at it,” said Robert Richards, founder of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at Pennsylvania State University. “Based on how those decisions come out, schools will change their policies or adopt policies.”

The case arose after two middle-school girls were prohibited from wearing the bracelets in the Easton (Pa.) Area School District in October. The girls —identified in court documents “B.H., a minor and K.M., a minor” — and their mothers, Jennifer Hawk and Amy McDonald-Martinez, are seeking to lift the ban.

The Easton district doesn’t wish to suppress messages about breast cancer, said John Freund, the lawyer representing the district. “What the school has a difficulty with,” he said, “is the manner of that expression, particularly the double entendre of ‘I love boobies.’ ”

Freund said the bracelets cause disruptions. “The reason this came to the administration’s attention is that teachers said kids were more focused on the booby bracelets than they were on their lessons.”

Mary Catherine Roper, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is helping represent the girls and their parents, said that students have a right to wear the bracelets.

The Easton case is the only one the ACLU has initiated, but Roper said she has corresponded with colleagues in Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware. “I am in touch with ACLU lawyers all over the country who have been in conversations with various school districts about this.”

Two Utah school districts — Granite and Weber — decided last month not to ban the bracelets after the ACLU contacted them, said Darcy Goddard, legal director for the ACLU of Utah Foundation. A district in Junction City, Kan., dropped its ban after a letter from the ACLU, said Doug Bonney, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri.

The bracelets have also caused controversy in South Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, Florida and Wisconsin.

Proceeds from the sales of the bracelets go to the California-based Keep A Breast Foundation, which sells them for $3.99 on its website.

“Keep A Breast believes the best way to reach, educate and impact people is by speaking to them in a voice they can relate to,” spokeswoman Kimmy McAtee said.

Martin also reports for the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Andrew Shubin, a private attorney acting on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), attended Felletter’s Judicial Affairs conference Wednesday and said the university issued no sanctions and found no violations against the photographer.

Shubin, a member of the Board of Directors for the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the ACLU, called the decision “an excellent result and the correct result.”

Felletter attended the Oct. 25 riot in Beaver Canyon following Penn State’s football victory over Ohio State because he was assigned to do so by his editor, Shubin said, adding his client was not present to celebrate and acted responsibly.

Felletter was charged with two misdemeanors, failure to disperse and disorderly conduct, according to the criminal complaint.

Although he hadn’t yet heard of the university’s decision, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira said Felletter (junior-visual journalism) could still be found guilty in a court of law. Even though Judicial Affairs examined some of the same police documents Madeira is using for his case, the review process for the university is different from that of a magisterial district judge, the prosecutor said. For now, the criminal charges stand, he said.

“We’re not charging him with violating a code of ethics,” he said. “You’re charging him with violating criminal law.”

A judge dismissed Wednesday the remaining charge against a Daily Collegian photographer who was arrested while on assignment photographing the Oct. 25 riot following a Penn State football team victory over Ohio State.

Citing “unclear” evidence, Centre County Judge David E. Grine dismissed the failure to disperse charge against the photographer, Michael R. Felletter, according to Grine’s ruling.

“The justice system did its part,” Felletter (senior-visual journalism) said. “Hopefully, journalists will feel freer to go out and gather the news without fearing they’ll be charged for breaking the law.”

Now Centre County officials are reviewing Grine’s ruling to determine whether to appeal or re-file the charges against Felletter, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira wrote in an e-mail.

Felletter photographed the riot, during which thousands of Penn State students flooded Beaver Canyon. Police initially arrested 14 people in connection with the incident.

Police said Felletter’s photographing caused the crowd to become “more exuberant, excited and destructive,” according to the criminal complaint.

It is unclear whether Felletter was following police orders to disperse when they arrested him, according to the ruling.

Grine ruled it is uncertain whether Felletter’s compliance with police orders to “move along” was adequate when he moved from the street to sidewalk.

Additionally, Grine blamed the rioters for their behavior — not Felletter, according to the ruling.

Felletter’s Attorney, Andrew Shubin, who represented Felletter for free, said the ruling represented a victory for journalists and the First Amendment.

“There’s a bigger principle involved,” Shubin said. “It’s a critical principle–the government needs to leave the press alone.”

Shubin said he was disappointed the county pursued the case and said it was an “attack” on the press.

Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said Felletter’s case was “extremely rare” because the county did not immediately dismiss the charges.

While it isn’t unusual for police to cite journalists during an event like a riot, LoMonte said authorities normally immediately realize their mistake.

Felletter was originally charged with five counts of failure to disperse and one count of disorderly conduct after he photographed the riot , according to court documents.

The county later re-filed only one charge of failure to disperse against Felletter last semester, according to court documents.

“What was unusual about this case was the authorities had been so persistent even when it became clear the photographer was just doing his job,” LoMonte said.

Shubin agreed and said it was “un-American” to arrest a member of the press for covering a newsworthy event.

“This is the United States, not China,” Shubin said. “We don’t arrest photographers.”

LoMonte said his organization has dealt with various cases involving student journalists and the First Amendment because authorities often do not take collegiate journalists seriously.

“There is a temptation for the authorities to see them as nothing more than another student rather than a professional,” LoMonte said.

Through it all, Felletter said he never thought of giving up his career as a photojournalist because he believes he is “in the right.”

Collegian Editor-in-Chief Rossilynne Skena agreed and said she was “excited” about the recent news.

“We’ve been supporting Mike the entire time,” Skena (senior-journalism) said. “Mike was just doing his job. He was there to record what was happening.”

By Daryl Lang

Collegian Staff Writer

Penn State is considering whether to punish three students who refused police orders to leave a university building during a July protest, the students said yesterday.

The students said the situation is unfair because their case has already been heard in court and the criminal charges against them were all dismissed.

“It’s just a pathetic attempt to try to pin something on us,” said Justin Leto (senior-computer engineering), who organized the protest.

The protest is the third recent incident in which Penn State’s Office of Judicial Affairs has taken on a controversial legal matter, including a case when the office declined to punish a football player charged with assault.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said yesterday that the university’s judicial process concerns whether students broke a university rule, something separate from a criminal charge.

The three student demonstrators — Leto, Robyn Stephens (senior-sociology) and Michelle Yates (junior-women’s studies) — each were called to meet with the director of judicial affairs. The meetings took place over the last two weeks.

Each declined to admit any wrongdoing and will have their case decided at judicial hearings that have yet to be scheduled.

Working as a group called “Redirection 2000″, the students waved signs and banners on July 10 to protest the failure of the National Governors’ Association Annual Meeting to respond to the menu of causes they support.

Several students climbed through a second-floor window in order to hang a sign on a balcony facing a governors event at the HUB-Robeson Center. Penn State Police Services ordered the students to leave and arrested five of them.

“Being on the ledge wasn’t something the university approved of, and it wasn’t safe,” said Mahon, who said he was present at the demonstration.

After their arrest, police charged all five students with “defiant trespass.”

At a July 20 preliminary hearing, District Justice Daniel Hoffman dismissed all the charges against the demonstrators.

But recently, three of the students were called before Joseph Puzycki, Penn State’s director of judicial affairs, for disciplinary action.

Penn State accused Leto, Stephens and Yates of “failure to comply with a directive” and “unauthorized use of university buildings/facilities,” the students said in a statement.

Penn State never figured out who the other two arrested demonstrators were, Leto said.

Puzycki allowed State College attorney Andy Shubin, who is representing the students free of charge, to sit in on one of the meetings, Shubin said.

Shubin wonders why the university keeps pursuing the case even after court testimony July 20 from Penn State University Relations Executive Director Steve MacCarthy. The students said MacCarthy had given them permission to be in the building.

“What’s upsetting here is that the university’s official and the top guy on the scene has already testified under oath,” Shubin said. “That testimony essentially exonerates them from any wrongdoing. . . . Of course, the university is a large institution and maybe the left hand isn’t talking to the right hand.”

Neither MacCarthy nor Puzycki were in their offices yesterday, and Penn State won’t discuss specific judicial cases in the interest of protecting students’ privacy, Mahon said.

But Mahon said the judicial affairs process is separate from the criminal courts.

“We don’t try people in our judicial system for breaking those laws. We take people through our judicial system for violating a university policy,” Mahon said.

The three students involved said Puzycki offered them disciplinary probation at their meeting with him if they would admit wrongdoing, but they refused. Probation is assigned for a specific period of time and can include a number of different conditions, including barring students from certain scholarships, according to the Judicial Affairs Web site.

Leto said the university should be the ones punished for violating students’ free speech rights.

“This is what they’ve been doing the entire time, making us look like the criminals, when it’s really they who are the criminals,” Leto said.

Leto also said it was unfair that the university’s judicial process compels students to talk about their actions, as if they are presumed guilty until they defend themselves.

Several students involved in a July 16 State College riot criticized the Office of Judicial Affairs earlier this month.

They said the office had sanctioned them for their participation in the riot even though they had not yet been tried in court.

Michael Byrne (senior-computer engineering) complained of a double standard.

Penn State quarterback Rashard Casey was charged in connection with an assault in New Jersey but also has not yet been tried. Penn State has taken no action against him, MacCarthy said earlier this month, because the police in Hoboken, N.J., have refused to provide information to the university.

Yates said it was unfair for Penn State to punish the student demonstrators but not Casey, especially since the demonstrators have had their criminal charges dropped.

Mahon said Judicial Affairs has become an increasingly busy office on campus over the last several years, but said it wasn’t attributed to any specific case.

“It’s a system that’s worked very well,” Mahon said. “Normally it (a case) ends very early in the stage.”