It's a problem as old as schools themselves -- students making fun of their teachers and administrators.

In the past, it could have been as simple as a sniggering comment behind someone's back. Or a drawing on a bathroom wall.

Nowadays, though, it's just as likely to be an Internet post -- available to anyone and everyone around the world with access to a computer.

Those cases, where students write offensive, sometimes egregious things, have become the stuff of lawsuits -- where free speech advocates and strict disciplinarians meet head-to-head before a judge who must weigh constitutional rights against the rights of administrators to rule their own schools.

Four such cases have been filed in federal court here in the last eight years on behalf of high school students by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

Three of those cases were decided in the students' favor -- and monetary damages were awarded to them from their respective school districts.

The most recent case -- involving a Hermitage high school senior -- was filed last month and is still pending.

Justin Layshock, a 17-year-old gifted student at Hickory High School in Mercer County, was given a 10-day out-of-school suspension and moved into the Alternative Education Program for creating an online profile of his principal at myspace.com in December. He made the parody on a computer at his grandmother's house, not during school hours.

The profile, which ridiculed the size of Principal Eric W. Trosch, used some profanity, but mostly included answers to questions such as, "eye color," "hair color," and "your perfect pizza," by simply saying, "Big."

However, Justin's profile -- along with three others posted on myspace.com whose creators have not been identified -- raised the ire of Mr. Trosch, who set out to learn who was responsible.

According to testimony in a hearing last week, school administrators spent a large chunk of their time in mid-December trying to find out who made the postings.

Justin, whose profile has been classified as the most benign of all four, was the only one who admitted making a Web page. The other profiles of Mr. Trosch reportedly included pornography and allegations of sexual misconduct. Other students at the school were given half-day or one-day in-school suspensions for accessing myspace at school, but Justin bore the brunt of the punishment.

"A lot of human nature comes into play in these things," said Dr. Paul Houston, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. "I think, sometimes, schools will react to these kinds of acts because feelings get hurt."

But those feelings might lead to stringent actions in the case of the student who is found out.

"Kids are making fun of the principal every day. That just goes with the turf," Dr. Houston said. "You just have to take it. You're a lightning rod for that sort of thing."

He suspects that school administrators at Hickory -- and in other schools where similar situations have occurred -- probably think that they are maintaining order. But sticking a reportedly good student in Alternative Education might be going too far.

"They've pretty well made a point already," he said. "The kid got 10 days, which is a pretty severe whack."

Though he knew only brief details of Justin's case, Dr. Houston said the punishment felt "extreme."

"I'd like to be more sympathetic to the school," he said. "[But] I think schools often tend to overreact to these things because of a personal issue."

In reviewing the decisions in three Western Pennsylvania cases, he might be right.

The first Internet-related free speech case filed locally was in 1999. The mother of Zacharia Paul, at the time a junior at Franklin Regional High School, filed a federal lawsuit against the district, claiming her son's due process and free speech rights were violated.

In March 1999, Mr. Paul wrote an e-mail that included an insulting Top-10 list about the school's athletic director, Robert Bozzuto. Again, it made fun of the man's size.

Though Mr. Paul created the list outside of school -- and never took copies of it to school -- the list found its way into a teacher's lounge and eventually to the administration.

The school suspended Mr. Paul for 10 days, and his mother filed a lawsuit. Eventually, they won $65,000 in fees and damages from the district. The judge in the case found that the district's policy for disciplining students who retaliate against school officials was overbroad and unconstitutionally vague.

Two years later, another student, Jack Flaherty, filed a suit against Keystone Oaks School District, which kicked him off the volleyball team for participating in an online "trash talk," which attacked a rival team and the mother of one of its players.

The school district ultimately paid Mr. Flaherty $74,900 to settle the suit. A judge in the case ruled, again, that the district's handbook for punishing students for offensive Internet messages posted from home was too broad and violated the First Amendment.

Just last summer, the Riverside Beaver County School District agreed to pay a student $90,000 to settle a lawsuit.

The district suspended then-14-year-old Anthony Latour for two years because of violent rap lyrics he posted on the Internet that officials claimed threatened other students.

Anthony filed a lawsuit, claiming the school had no right to punish him since he posted the words from home.

But trying to distinguish the problem of where something is posted and the impact it has at school is sometimes difficult.

"I think the Internet creates a whole new set of challenges for school administrators," Dr. Houston said.

It can cause trouble for judges, too, said Arthur Hellman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

"The advent of the Internet has raised questions of how you implement old law," he said.

For Hermitage School District to succeed in defending its case against Justin, administrators must prove to the court that the behavior in question -- even though it initially occurred off school property -- led to a "substantial disruption" in the school.

That standard was set by the 1969 Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. It gives school officials the constitutional authority to limit student expression when conduct causes, or is likely to cause, "substantial disruption," said Stuart Knade, chief counsel for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.

When that occurs, he said, it doesn't matter where the offending speech occurs.

Administrators should be able to "promote a certain amount of civility and dignity in the school hallways," Mr. Knade said. "It's a more effective way to promote learning than in a chaotic environment."

But Sam Chaltain, the director of the First Amendment Schools Project, in Arlington, Va., said in Justin's case, that might be hard to prove.

"It's very hard to make an argument that that kind of behavior, while certainly inappropriate, that it actually created a material and substantial disruption," Mr. Chaltain said.

But a judge found just that last week. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence F. McVerry said there was a "substantial disruption," at the school because of Justin's profile. The administration had to lock down all student computers and spent a large portion of their time investigating the matter.

"The court is saying you can't escape just because you did this on the Internet at home," Professor Hellman said.

Too often, though, schools are reactive to these kinds of problems, said Mr. Chaltain. Instead, they should have policies in place -- and well-understood among students -- that deal with the First Amendment, since almost all of the conflicts between students and administrators stem from it, he said.

The First Amendment covers everything from dress codes, to prayer in schools, to the Internet, to free expression.

"The best way to counter bad speech is with good speech," he said, "not with suspensions and censorship. ... School officials should be extremely cautious before attempting to limit student expression on a private Web site maintained off school grounds."

But because Justin's form of speech was a personal attack, and not political expression, Mr. Hellman said, a judge is going to be less sympathetic.

"The severity of the punishment isn't really a federal issue," Mr. Hellman said. "If there's no violation of his First Amendment rights, then the fact that the sanction was severe doesn't turn it into one."