The would-be varsity cheerleader, the tattletale and Snapchat have converged in a Supreme Court free speech case sure to draw the interest of social media-loving students, concerned parents and wary school administrators everywhere.
In 2017, a ninth-grade student in Schuylkill County, Pa., who failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad, vented her frustration in an F-bomb laced Snapchat post. She repeated the same curse before each of the words âschool,â âsoftball,â âcheerâ and âeverything.â
A teammate told a coach about the post, and administrators kicked her off the junior varsity cheerleading squad.
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Now, in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., the Supreme Court faces the question: Can school officials punish students for social media posts even when students post them off-campus, including in their own homes? The stakes are high: School administrators say they need to know the limits of their authority. Students deserve to know if schools can regulate them for social media posts they make off school grounds. The court could hear oral arguments as early as April.