Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own. If you tried out for a high school sports team and got placed on the junior varsity team instead of varsity, you would be angry, right? Let’s say you vented about how much you hate the team and school on your Snapchat story. That seems pretty normal. But, what if someone showed the post to your coach and you were suspended from the team for a whole year? A high school cheerleader was suspended from playing sports for doing just that. Now, she could become a champion for students’ free speech rights. Brandi Levy, a student at Mahanoy Area High School in Pennsylvania, tried out for her school’s varsity cheerleading team but instead ended up on the JV team. Upset with her placement, she posted a photo of her middle finger and the phrases “F— school, f— softball, f— cheer, f— everything,” on her Snapchat story. This case brings forward an incredibly important issue: students should not have their entire lives controlled by their schools. While students do have fewer rights than adults, that does not mean all of their freedoms should be stripped away — especially when they are not…
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Social media is students' free speech platform. The Supreme Court must recognize that.
