NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- While many kids and their parents get some back-to-school shopping done, one Connecticut high school student is headed to federal court.

Avery Doninger said that her rights were trampled when she was denied a spot in the race for class secretary. She claims that she was punished for a remark she made about Lewis Mills High School administrators on her Internet blog.

Doninger said that the posting led administrators to ban her from running for re-election as senior class secretary. She filed a lawsuit, stating that her right to free speech was violated.

"The fact that many people don't understand that students, particularly high school students, have first amendment rights and they cannot be trampled on by the arbitrary actions of administrators needs to be resolved," Doninger's attorney John Schoenhorn said.

Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Eric Parker reported that the first day of the three-day hearing featured testimony by two of Doninger's fellow students about the postponed Battle of the Bands event that led first to an angry e-mail and then to the online posting.

The students were questioned about what the derogatory term Doninger made means to them.

Parker reported that the lawyer for the defendants is being paid for by the school district's liability insurance and not taxpayers.

Defense attorney Thomas Gerarde said that the hearing is the only way to protect the school's ability to maintain order.

"If we get to the point where a class officer can call the superintendent an (expletive) and it's OK, then we've turned the keys to the asylum over to the inmates. It's not OK," Gerarde said.

At the end of the proceedings, Judge Mark Kravitz said that while he understands the issue of the hearing is important and that it's important who wins the case, it may be a lesson to students to find a way to resolve differences without "full litigative warfare."

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