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A 14-year-old girl was expected back in class this week, little more than a month after she rattled suburban Springfield Middle School by using a popular Internet site to post personal profiles of a teacher and assistant principal that not only were false but can only be described as pornographic.

Let’s hope that the girl, her parents, the school district, and even the American Civil Liberties Union have learned something from this distressing episode, which is more about common decency than it is free speech.

The girl, an eighth grade honor student who had never been in trouble before, shocked the Springfield Local community by impersonating the female teacher and the male administrator in graphic sexual profiles on the Web site MySpace.com, which ironically describes itself as “a place for friends.”

In bland terms — the actual vile phraseology doesn’t belong in a family newspaper — the girl portrayed the educators as sexual predators trolling for children. When school officials suspended her and threatened expulsion, the ACLU intervened, claiming it was merely a “joke gone awry.”

The school board, advised by its attorney that it was looking at three to five years of litigation with a six-figure cost, reluctantly backed off last week and reinstated her.

As a newspaper, we are naturally partial to the constitutional right of free speech. But this is one of those cases that stretches that cherished right to the breaking point without concern for the responsibility that comes with it.

First, the Web postings were not merely accusations, opinions, or parody, but a malicious outburst in which the girl, cloaked in the Internet’s anonymity, ascribed immoral actions to the educators by pretending to be them. If this was a joke, there was nothing remotely funny about it. And it could damage their careers.

Second, despite the ACLU’s claim to the contrary, this was a valid school matter, even though the girl wrote the profiles on her home computer. Because names were used, she might as well have posted the information on a billboard next to the school. About 40 percent of the students have accounts on MySpace and similar sites.

This was not just a case of a student repeating bad things about a teacher or principal in the hall, over the telephone, or even by e-mail. Internet postings reach a worldwide audience, and sexual impropriety with students is probably the worst accusation that can be made against an educator these days.

Third, in asking the ACLU to intervene, the girl’s parents have sent their daughter the wrong message: that a false accusation is acceptable, if you can get away with it. Considering the internal disruption she caused at the school, six weeks out of class — with district-paid tutors — is light punishment for so grievous an offense.

The Springfield school board recognized that fact but its members cannot be faulted for declining to spend scarce educational dollars on years of litigation.

Even though it prevailed, the ACLU should not consider the outcome of the Springfield case as a victory for the principle of free speech. The malicious circumstances make the filthy slander posted by the student a poor standard for an otherwise valid constitutional right.

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