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Perhaps more disconcerting is that 54 percent of young people think it’s OK to use discriminatory words within their own circle of friends, because “I know we don’t mean it.

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And if we didn’t have all these social networks out there — the Facebook, you know, and the Internet in general — that is where a lot of the bullying occurs

members of the multitasking generation pays a price for their digital lives on their report cards.

The case highlights the legal challenges facing courts and school administrators as they grapple with campus civil order and free expression in an online world.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in a Florida federal court, concerns Katherine Evans, now 19, who was suspended as a senior last year after creating a Facebook group devoted to her English teacher. The group was called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met!," and featured a photograph of the teacher, and an invitation for other students to "express your feelings of hatred." After people’s comments derided Evans for the online stunt, and expressed support for the teacher, she deleted the group. But Pembroke Pines Charter High School, which did not respond for comment, suspended Evans for three days for "disruptive behavior" and for "Bullying / Cyber Bullying Harassment towards a staff member," according to the lawsuit, which is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The lawsuit (.pdf) is one of about a dozen across the United States that are part of the fallout as schools confront cyberbullying and the explosion of social networking sites. A Texas high school volleyball coach in September went so far as to declare a ban on student Facebook and MySpace profiles, a decision the Northside Independent School District reversed (.pdf). Last month, Tennessee State University blocked the online gossip site JuicyCampus at the school firewall. In June, Missouri enacted a law against "cyberbullying" in the wake of the Megan Meier suicide tragedy, which was triggered by a hoax MySpace account.

There’s no bright-line rule on what constitutes free, student speech in the online world. And as schools start to regulate off-campus student speech on the internet, lawsuits are following.

Technology also extends the reach these young people have, enabling them to harass their targets anywhere and at anytime. While these situations should be reported, it can be difficult for young people to step forward: how do you report an attack that leaves no physical scars and is committed by a nameless attacker? Will the consequences of telling an adult that you are being cyberbullied be worse than the bullying itself? Adults want to help, but many feel ill-equipped to handle bullying in a digital world.

On social networking sites, you can now tag images with the names of people who are in the photo. This simple act can lead to cyberbullying, as these photos will appear in any search into this person’s name and it could be that misappropriated profile settings do not protect access to them.

Multiplayer online games and virtual worlds can be venues for harassment and cyberbullying when kids are playing or using the chat features to talk to other players. According to a 2008 Pew Internet & American Life Project report, more than half of teens who play games report seeing or hearing “people being mean and overly aggressive while playing”; a quarter of them report that this happens “often.”