A cheerleader's Snapchat rant leads to 'momentous' Supreme Court case on student speech

Instead, an adolescent outburst and the adult reaction to it has arrived at the Supreme Court, where it could determine how the First Amendment’s protection of free speech applies to the off-campus activities of the nation’s 50 million public school students.Story continues below advertisement“Much of the speech from students is off-campus and increasingly online,” Driver said. “When I talk to school administrators, they consistently tell me that off-campus speech bedevils them, and the lower courts desperately need some guidance in this area.”That shouldn’t be a surprise, as cellphones have become an extension of almost every teenager’s hand and social media a preferred mode of communication. And for the past year, many students have not gone near a school campus, with their “speech” happening in their homes during Zoom classes.Story continues below advertisementThe First Amendment does not “force schools to ignore student speech that upends the campus environment simply because that speech originated off campus,” says a brief filed by Mahanoy Area School District, which upheld the school’s decision to kick Levy off the cheer squad.“Wherever student speech originates, schools should be able to treat students alike when their speech is directed at the school and imposes the same disruptive harms…
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