A federal court on Thursday upheld a Mississippi high school student's suspension for posting a song online criticizing two coaches, rejecting the student's argument that he was exercising his right to free speech.
 
The majority decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said Taylor Bell wanted the song to be heard by the school community and that happened after he posted it to Facebook and YouTube. It added that Bell's song was posted to threaten, harass and intimidate the two coaches.

The Itawamba County school district suspended Bell for seven days in 2011. School officials said he did not cooperate when they tried to investigate the allegations he had made in the song and caused a major disruption at school by posting the video. The accusations against the coaches were never substantiated, and no criminal charges were filed against them.

Weeks after he was suspended, Bell and his mother, Dora Bell, sued the school district.

A federal judge in Mississippi upheld the suspension, and Bell appealed to the 5th Circuit.

Attorneys for Bell argued a school's authority over what students do ends "at the schoolhouse gate."

But 5th Circuit Judge Rhesa Barksdale, writing for the majority, said the suspension was justified because the school district was faced with "off-campus speech directed intentionally at the school community and reasonably understood by school officials to be threatening, harassing, and intimidating to a teacher."

"Although, under other circumstances, such communications might be protected speech under the First Amendment, off-campus threats, harassment, and intimidation directed at teachers create a tension between a student's free speech rights and a school official's duty to maintain discipline and protect the school community," Barksdale said in the opinion.