Supreme Court grapples with students' First Amendment rights in case involving high school …

The Supreme Court grappled on Wednesday with the First Amendment claims of a former high school cheerleader who argued that she could not be punished by her school for posting a profanity-laced caption on Snapchat when she was off school grounds.The justices at times seemed sympathetic to the plight of the cheerleader in the case at hand, but searched for a workable standard — especially in the age of social media — that could shape the free speech rights of some 50 million public school children while also allow the schools to step in for speech that occurs off campus or online that could amount to a substantial disruption of the school’s mission or an example of bullying or a threat. “F— school f— softball f— cheer f— everything” Brandi Levy, then 14, wrote in 2017. She was reacting to the fact that as a junior varsity cheerleader she had failed to get a spot on the varsity squad at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania.When school officials learned of the outburst, Levy was suspended from the JV team for having violated school rules. But her lawyers sued, alleging the school had violated her freedom of speech. Levy…
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