Can A School Punish A Cheerleader For Cursing On Snapchat? Supreme Court Leans Toward ‘No’
TOPLINE The U.S. Supreme Court considered Wednesday whether a high school was legally justified in suspending a cheerleader from the team who posted an expletive-filled Snapchat about the school, a case that could have broad implications for what students can say online when they’re outside of school—though the justices signaled they were hesitant to make any sweeping judgements.
KEY FACTS
The case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., considered whether a Pennsylvania high school violated the First Amendment by suspending cheerleader Brandi Levy from the team for a year in 2017 for Snapchatting a selfie of her giving the middle finger with the message, “f—k school, f—k softball, f—k cheer, f—k everything” from an off-campus convenience store after she did not make the varsity squad. pg
The school district argued administrators were within their rights to do so under a previous Supreme Court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that established schools are justified in suppressing students’ speech on school grounds if it would "materially and substantially interfere" with the school’s operation and cause a “severe disruption.”
The justices suggested the high school may have gone too far by punishing Levy, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh saying the suspension “just seems excessive” when the cheerleader was “blowing off steam” and Justice Stephen Breyer noting that if all students could be punished for swearing outside of school, “every school in the country would be doing nothing but punishing.”
The justices grappled with what would constitute “school speech” that could be regulated by the school and off-campus speech that could not, and suggested they were unlikely to make a sweeping ruling on exactly which speech should be allowed and which should not.
“We probably can’t write a treatise here and shouldn’t write a treatise,” Kavanaugh said, while Breyer said he was “frightened to death of writing a standard” regarding when off-campus speech is punishable.
The justices did express some skepticism about the cheerleader’s attorney’s argument that all off-campus speech should only be punished if it’s not protected by the First Amendment—like inciting violence—and suggested they were open to saying some speech can be regulated, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor saying she’s “dubious” most teenagers’ misconduct would rise to that level and suggesting things like off-campus bullying of a student could be punished.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
If the court doesn’t make a sweeping judgement on which speech is allowed and which isn’t, the justices suggested that they could sidestep the issue. The court could say more broadly that some off-campus speech could apply under the Supreme Court precedent—particularly in the case of school teams that have their own standards for conduct—and send the case back to the lower court to make another judgement, Kavanaugh suggested during the hearing as a possible outcome of the case.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
Expanding the rule on letting schools prohibit “disruptive” speech past school grounds would “upend the First Amendment’s bedrock principle and would require students to effectively carry the schoolhouse on their backs in terms of speech rights everywhere they go,” attorney David Cole of the American Civil Liberties Union, who represented Levy, said Wednesday. “[Levy’s] message may seem trivial, but for young people, the ability to voice their emotions to friends without school censorship may be the most important freedom of all.”
