Heed Limit on Controlling Off-Campus Speech

More than 50 year ago in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court, reacting to Iowa teens being wrongfully suspended by a public high school for wearing antiwar armbands, ruled that disciplining kids for speech is unconstitutional unless their speech “substantially” disrupts school functions. In the intervening years, school-speech cases often held for school administrators, interpreting the word “disruption” broadly. However, just recently in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. the high court ruled 8-1 that school officials need to stay clear of disciplining off-campus speech, except under narrow circumstances and issued relatively clear guidelines for doing so. Want to continue reading?Become an ALM Digital Reader for Free! Benefits of a Digital Membership Free access to 1 article* every 30 days Access to the entire ALM network of websites Unlimited access to the ALM suite of newsletters Build custom alerts on any search topic of your choosing Search by a wide range of topics Already have an account? Sign In Now *May exclude premium content You Might Like 1 minute read 1 minute read 1 minute read 1 minute read Trending Stories Mentioned in a Law.com story? License our industry-leading legal content to extend your thought leadership…
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