The Supreme Court ruled today that a Pennsylvania high school violated the first amendment of a student by suspending the pom-pump team, following snapchat poles where she criticized the School with exploits. The judgment establishes a stronger standard for the way schools can punish students for an off-campus speech, something more common nowadays with social networks like Snapchat. The Supreme Court confirmed a lower court decision, which also found that the school, the Lycée of the Mahoney region, violated Brandi Levy’s first amendments.
After failing to do the school cheerleading of the school in 2017, Levy posted two messages snapchat with a friend while leaving in a local store. “F-School F- Softball F- Everything”, “he wrote in his first message, according to CNBC. She subtitled her follow-up message with “Love how to tell me and [another student] told us that we need a year of JV before making a varsity but that Tha] does not have importance for someone else? ” And of course, it was accompanied by a smiley face upside down emoji.
“Although public schools can have a particular interest in regulating a speech on off-campus students, the special interests offered by the school are not sufficient to overcome the interest of BL [brandi levy] in freedom of expression. In this case, “, Justice of the Supreme Court Stephen Breyer wrote in the decision. While the court said that schools have some ability to regulate the off-campus speech of a student, including situations such as teacher harassment and severe intimidation.
But with regard to this case, Breyer wrote the school did not overcome three measures to regulate off-campus speech. First, schools rarely take the parents’ place when students are far from the campus. In addition, the courts must be extracted when schools try to regulate the off-campus speech because they essentially allow them to find problems with everything a student says throughout the day. Finally, Breyer wrote that public schools also have an interest in protecting freedom of expression because they serve as “nurseries of democracy”.
