If you ever got picked on in school, you’ll find this story sort of satisfying, not to mention ironic. The Associated Press (News - Alert) is reporting that a federal appeals court yesterday upheld the suspension of a West Virginia high school student who created a Web page suggesting another student had a sexually transmitted disease and invited classmates to comment.

So, a clear case of a bully who tried to use the courts to duck responsibility being smacked down. Who doesn’t like that?

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to reinstate senior student Kara Kowalski’s lawsuit against school officials in Berkeley County, said the AP. She claimed her five-day suspension from Musselman High School in 2005 violated her free speech and due process rights, and that school officials lacked authority to punish her because she created the page at home.

But the the appeals court noted that Kowalski created the social networking page for her classmates and about a fellow classmate, so the school was within its rights to discipline her.

Her crime?

She created a MySpace (News - Alert) page called “S.A.S.H.” which she claimed in court stood for “Students Against Sluts Herpes.” However, a classmate affirmed that it actually stood for “Students Against Shay’s Herpes,” using the name of Kowalski’s intended victim and the topic of the page. Students added photos of the victim to the page, with added drawings intended to suggest that the girl was diseased with an STD, and contributed a number of cruel comments. When the victim’s parents complained, the school agreed that Kowalski had indeed created a “hate Web site” that violated its anti-bullying rules and suspended her.

If you like irony, this is the best part: in addition to the suspension, Kowalski, who was last year’s “Queen of Charm” contest winner, was prevented from crowning her “Queen of Charm” successor with her tiara. (You can’t make this stuff up.) She was also kicked off the cheerleading squad.

Kowaslki has complained that the punishment has made her “isolated and depressed,” a fact that failed to move the appeals court...not to mention 99 percent of the country, very probably.

“Kowalski’s role in the ‘S.A.S.H.’ webpage, which was used to ridicule and demean a fellow student, was particularly mean-spirited and hateful,” wrote Judge Paul V. Niemeyer. “Regretfully, she yet fails to see that such harassment and bullying is inappropriate and hurtful and that it must be taken seriously by school administrators,” he wrote.

How “charming.”

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