Do student social media posts count as free speech?

When students post on social media from off of school property, are those posts protected as free speech? The US Supreme Court will issue a ruling that decides that question before adjourning for the summer.

When Brandi Levy, a junior varsity cheerleader at a Pennsylvania high school, learned that she didn’t make the varsity cheerleading team, she did what any teenager might—she blew off some steam on social media. On a Saturday, from a neighborhood convenience store, she posted a short, profanity-laced rant on Snapchat expressing her discontent with school and cheerleading, with an image of herself and a friend raising their middle fingers to the camera.

A screenshot of the post made its way to the cheerleading coach, who suspended Levy from the junior varsity team. The school upheld the punishment, and Levy—represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—sued the district, claiming a violation of her First Amendment rights. After two courts ruled in the student’s favor, the school district brought the incident to the US Supreme Court, which will issue a ruling before adjourning for the summer.

At issue is a precedent set in 1969 in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, when the court ruled that the First Amendment protects student speech on campus if it doesn’t “substantially” interfere with school activities.

Now, in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., the justices are being asked to decide whether Tinker applies to off-campus speech.

Bill Koski, a professor of law and education and director of the Youth & Education Law Project (YELP) at Stanford University, has been tracking the case along with a team of YELP law students working on a similar case about internet-based speech and schools.

Here, he and the students—Taylor Chambers, Bruce Easop, and Leah Plachinski—discuss the case and its implications:

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