A Lively Supreme Court Argument Over a Cheerleader’s Vulgar Rant
The justices struggled to determine how the First Amendment applies to public schools’ power to punish students for social media posts and other off-campus speech.
Brandi Levy.Credit.Danna Singer/A.C.L.U., via Reuters
April 28, 2021
WASHINGTON In a freewheeling two-hour argument on free speech in the age of social media, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to reject an appeals court’s sweeping ruling that the First Amendment does not allow public schools to punish students for what they say outside school grounds. Instead, the justices seemed to favor a modest decision that would leave many difficult questions unanswered.
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WASHINGTON - The high school cheerleader relegated to the JV squad for another year responded with a fleeting fit of frustration: a photo of her upraised middle finger and another word that begins with F. “F - school, f - softball, f - cheer, f - everything,” 14-year-old Brandi Levy typed into Snapchat one spring Saturday. Like all “snaps” posted to a Snapchat “story,” this one, sent to about 250 “friends,” was to disappear within 24 hours, before everyone returned to Pennsylvania’s Mahanoy Area High School on Monday. Instead, an adolescent outburst and the adult reaction to it has arrived at the Supreme Court, where it could determine how the First Amendment’s protection of free speech applies to the off-campus activities of the nation’s 50 million public school students.