Kids, school and online posts

In a case that began with a teenager’s Snapchat rant against her cheerleading squad, the Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether and when a school can punish students for what they say online when they aren’t in school. We hope that the court will say: very rarely.In 2017 a student known in court filings as B.L. was upset when she failed to make the varsity cheerleading team at a Pennsylvania school. Away from school she posted on Snapchat a photo of her and a friend giving the middle finger. Accompanying the photo was this message: “F— school, F— softball, F— cheer, F— everything.”Snapchat is designed to delete messages once they’re seen, but a screenshot of B.L.’s rant was shown to her cheerleading coaches. She was suspended from the JV team. B.L. sued, alleging the school violated her free speech rights. The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia agreed, ruling that the school couldn’t punish her for “off-campus speech.”In Tinker v. Des Moines School District, a landmark 1969 decision involving students who came to school wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, the court declared that students in public schools don’t leave their free speech rights at the…
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