The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former Pennsylvania high school student, deciding that the school violated her First Amendment rights when it penalized her for using profane language to criticize the school on social media when she wasnât on school grounds.
Mahanoy Area High School suspended then-student Brandi Levyâwhoâs now attending collegeâfrom her junior varsity cheerleading team when she used curse words in reference to the school on Snapchat, per CNBC.
âFuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything,â Levy wrote in her first Snapchat post, alongside a photo of her and her friend flipping off the camera.
In a second post, she wrote, âLove how me and [another student] get told we need a year of jv before we make varsity but tha[t] doesnât matter to anyone else?âÂ
The Supreme Court upheld a decision from the 3rd Circuit Appeals Court, which had ruled in Levyâs favor. The lower court cited a 1969 court decision, which said public schools couldnât monitor certain speech since it happened off campus. The Supreme Court took a different view, writing that, âWhile public schools may have a special interest in regulating some off-campus student speech, the special interests offered by the school are not sufficient to overcome B.L.âs interest in free expression in this case.â
The courtâs decision on Wednesday said âcourts must be more skeptical of a schoolâs efforts to regulate off-campus speech, for doing so may mean the student cannot engage in that kind of speech at all.â
The school in fact âhas an interest in protecting a studentâs unpopular expression, especially when the expression takes place off campus,â because âAmericaâs public schools are the nurseries of democracy.â
Levy was a high school sophomore in 2017 when she tried out for her schoolâs varsity cheerleading team but didnât make the cut. She posted the Snapchat messages over the following weekend, while at a convenience store. The posts were later seen by the schoolâs cheerleading coaches and the principal, who suspended Levy from the squad for the upcoming year, saying she violated the schoolâs rules.Â
She responded to the courtâs ruling with a statement. âThe school went too far, and Iâm glad that the Supreme Court agrees,â Levy said. âI was frustrated, I was 14 years old, and I expressed my frustration the way teenagers do today. Young people need to have the ability to express themselves without worrying about being punished when they get to school. I never could have imagined that one simple snap would turn into a Supreme Court case, but Iâm proud that my family and I advocated for the rights of millions of public school students.â
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