Federal court ditches student-free-speech decisions

Philadelphia's federal appeals court has vacated two key decisions of this past February that served to confuse matters. The 3rd Circuit Court "has decided to discard those conflicting decisions and rehear both cases on June 3," Wired reports. "School officials complained the rulings left them unclear on what legal legs they had to stand on when comes to punishing students for their online, off-campus speech." Wired adds that a larger panel of 13 judges – as opposed to the panels of three in February – will be rehearing arguments in the both cases in June and "the decisions, which are likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, will govern Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and the Virgin Islands." Here's my post about the February decisions, also linking to Wired's coverage.