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A teen was suspended from her cheerleading team for cursing on a Snapchat video. Now she’ll be heard by the Supreme Court.

It is expected that all athletes will meet better than minimum standards in conduct at all times. An athlete may be suspended from participation during the period of time when such an infraction may have a detrimental effect upon the image of other athletes at High School.

Any athlete acting in a manner that brings embarrassment or shame to themselves and/or the school, or that negatively impacts the reputation of themselves or the school is strictly prohibited. This includes social media posts, comments, and pictures. Examples of such conduct include any illegal activity; any non-illegal activity that is lewd, vulgar, obscene, indecent, or that portrays sexual conduct done in a manner whereby the community learns of such activity; involvement in a physical altercation; destruction of property (school property or personal property); or any activity that degrades, demeans, or disparages any coach, activity sponsor, school official, or student.

This is pretty stock language in handbooks in our area.

That's some pretty board language. I could see some 1st amendment issues depending on how these policies were interpreted and enforced.
 
“F——— school f——— softball f——— cheer f——— everything" is protected speech; bullying/harassment is not.
This girl wins.
So, throw the n word in there instead of "softball". Not addressed to anyone. Just in general. A coach shouldn't be able to keep someone like that off the team?
 
That's some pretty board language. I could see some 1st amendment issues depending on how these policies were interpreted and enforced.

Rights are always a balancing act. They will clash against each other at times.

The state athletics organization/governing body has similar language.
 
And that's the threat here. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the girl then that pretty much eliminates any way for a school to discipline children for behavior that will get them fired when they are employed by a company later on. Now, I would agree that giving an out of school suspension would be too excessive. I think freedom of speech would protect her from being removed from school and harming her education (and it would be counter-productive). However, she wasn't barred from school. She was suspended from doing an extra-curricular activity. That's not essential to her education.
We do all kinds of things in education now that isn't anything like the real world. Lack of accountability is a major one. Parents fighting to defend asshole behavior doesn't help. Honestly, I've seen way worse than what this kid did.

Then we do things like - "Hey, there's no deadline. Turn it in whenever you feel like it and I will change your grade." That's nothing like what one can do in a job. In the vast majority of cases.
 
Part of the issue that I see in this case is that the social media post was done when the girl was 14. It is her college team/coach that now has now called it out. I feel that it is different if she did/said this stuff after she joined her college team.
 
Rights are always a balancing act. They will clash against each other at times.

The state athletics organization/governing body has similar language.
Rights should only be restricted when exercising those rights infringes on someone else's rights or causes proximate harm.
 
So, throw the n word in there instead of "softball". Not addressed to anyone. Just in general. A coach shouldn't be able to keep someone like that off the team?

Did I say that? I posted that this speech was proteced. You are assuming that it's the same situation if we just substitute the n-word for "softball." I don't agree - that is harrassment in a school setting. Doesn't matter if it's not directed at an individual.
 
Did I say that? I posted that this speech was proteced. You are assuming that it's the same situation if we just substitute the n-word for "softball." I don't agree - that is harrassment in a school setting. Doesn't matter if it's not directed at an individual.
It's not in a school setting it's online. And my point is that it's not as simple as it's made out to be. Tons of gray area. Coaches preach behavior off the field and good citizenship. If you don't include speech in that, what's the point? It's about representation of the program. That can and should be policed by coaches and used against players in making decisions. You don't agree with that?
 
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Is speech free if there are consequences? This speech was outside of school grounds, and not made during the school activity.
1A says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It says Congress can't make laws, it doesn't say anything about the cheerleading coach not imposing penalties for kids who say "Eff Cheer!".
 
It's not in a school setting it's online. And my point is that it's not as simple as it's made out to be. Tons of gray area. Coaches preach behavior off the field and good citizenship. If you don't include speech in that, what's the point? It's about representation of the program. That can and should be policed by coaches and used against players in making decisions. You don't agree with that?

Not totally. Public school students (and athletes) have some first amendment rights. That's already been decided. Thia case is about where the line is. "God Hates Fags" was protected in the Westboro case; it certainly wouldn't be protected in a school setting.

Who decides what "good citizenship is? Is taking a knee during the anthem "good citizenship"?
 
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1A says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It says Congress can't make laws, it doesn't say anything about the cheerleading coach not imposing penalties for kids who say "Eff Cheer!".
The 14th Amendment allowed for incorporation of individual rights to prohibit states from making laws.
 
The 14th Amendment allowed for incorporation of individual rights to prohibit states from making laws.
In this case it's not the state making a law, it's a club making rules for what members can/can't do because of the reflection that it has on the club. I get that the school gets funding, so it's an agent of the state, but it seems like if the SC says that the club can't punish her for reflecting poorly on the club, negative representation of the ideals of the club, or whatever they want to call it, then aren't they saying you can't control anything that the members say or do - as long as it's outside of school property, and not actively occurring during school functions?

To me, I think if the repercussions from the speech can still be felt when the student is back on campus/ in the club, then I think the club should be able to have rules that limit what you can say or do. It's unrealistic to me to allow her to say "Eff cheerleading!" and then come back for practice and think that's not going to have an impact on the kids and coaches that are part of the club.
 
I suspect the ruling will come down along the lines of membership on the Cheer Leading squad being a privilege and not a personal right,... Privileges can be revoked.
This right here.

Also tl;dr but what exactly is she taking this to court for? What's the end game?
 
Conduct generally isn't speech. Underage drinking is conduct, not speech, and can be regulated. You'e getting conduct and speech mixed up. Conduct - such as kneeling for the National Anthem - can be speech. But generally, high school conduct codes don't impinge on speech.
I'm not getting anything mixed up. I'm pretty sure that speech can fall under conduct. I'm also pretty sure that the H.S. administrators can easily justify that what this girl did was considered in violation of conduct policy. I'm also pretty sure that if I got on social media and said that all of the gals at my workplace are smokin' hot and want me, my boss would classify that as a conduct violation.
 
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There's no proximate harm to anyone in this case.

I simply stated that

1. Rights are a balancing act
2. If this violated an agreed upon code of conduct the school was within their rights to suspend her from the privilege of extra-curricular activities.
 
I didn't say that. You are saying that.
I'm sorry, then please help interpret your apparently rhetorical question "Is speech free if there are consequences?", because that sounds to me like you would consider any consequences for this girl a violation of her 1st Amendment rights.
 
I simply stated that

1. Rights are a balancing act
2. If this violated an agreed upon code of conduct the school was within their rights to suspend her from the privilege of extra-curricular activities.

Why do you insist that a public school code of conduct can supersede a student's speech rights? This was settled in Tinker 50 years ago. That the speech violated a school conduct code does not end the matter.
 
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In this case it's not the state making a law, it's a club making rules for what members can/can't do because of the reflection that it has on the club. I get that the school gets funding, so it's an agent of the state, but it seems like if the SC says that the club can't punish her for reflecting poorly on the club, negative representation of the ideals of the club, or whatever they want to call it, then aren't they saying you can't control anything that the members say or do - as long as it's outside of school property, and not actively occurring during school functions?

To me, I think if the repercussions from the speech can still be felt when the student is back on campus/ in the club, then I think the club should be able to have rules that limit what you can say or do. It's unrealistic to me to allow her to say "Eff cheerleading!" and then come back for practice and think that's not going to have an impact on the kids and coaches that are part of the club.
In this case it's a school, which is a subdivision of the state.
 
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I'm sorry, then please help interpret your apparently rhetorical question "Is speech free if there are consequences?", because that sounds to me like you would consider any consequences for this girl a violation of her 1st Amendment rights.
Read my other posts.
 
Why do you insist that a public school code of conduct can supersede a student's speech rights? This was settled in Tinker 50 years ago. That the speech violated a school conduct code does not end the matter.

Bethel vs Fraser allows for a school to discipline students who use vulgar or obscene language in public discourse. The handbook language provided clearly relies upon that ruling.

Also, Tinker made a distinction between speech which was non-disruptive or cannot be connected to the school vs disruptive language or language that could be connected to the school. Again, the handbook language is in the spirit of that.
 
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I'm sorry, then please help interpret your apparently rhetorical question "Is speech free if there are consequences?", because that sounds to me like you would consider any consequences for this girl a violation of her 1st Amendment rights.

If the speech is protected, the US Supreme Court has not only held that no negative consequences can follow, they have struck down laws that have merely had a "chilling effect" on free expression.

In Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965), the Court struck down a postal regulation requiring individuals who wished to receive communist literature to sign up at the post office. Although the program included no sanctions against recipients, the Court said it would chill individuals who wanted the material but were afraid to make their wishes known to the government.https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/897/chilling-effect
 
Bethel vs Fraser allows for a school to discipline students who use vulgar or obscene language in public discourse. The handbook language provided clearly relies upon that ruling.

Also, Tinker made a distinction between speech which was non-disruptive or cannot be connected to the school vs disruptive language or language that could be connected to the school. Again, the handbook language is in the spirit of that.

Yes - in the school during school hours. This case is about outside-of-school speech. That's the whole point of the case.
 
Bethel vs Fraser allows for a school to discipline students who use vulgar or obscene language in public discourse. The handbook language provided clearly relies upon that ruling.

Also, Tinker made a distinction between speech which was non-disruptive or cannot be connected to the school vs disruptive language or language that could be connected to the school. Again, the handbook language is in the spirit of that.

Re: Tinker

The Supreme Court held that the armbands represented pure speech that is entirely separate from the actions or conduct of those participating in it. The Court also held that the students did not lose their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech when they stepped onto school property. In order to justify the suppression of speech, the school officials must be able to prove that the conduct in question would "materially and substantially interfere" with the operation of the school. In this case, the school district's actions evidently stemmed from a fear of possible disruption rather than any actual interference.
 
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Yes - in the school during school hours. This case is about outside-of-school speech. That's the whole point of the case.

I agree. I believe that in this case there is some connection between the speech and the school.
 
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Re: Tinker

The Supreme Court held that the armbands represented pure speech that is entirely separate from the actions or conduct of those participating in it. The Court also held that the students did not lose their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech when they stepped onto school property. In order to justify the suppression of speech, the school officials must be able to prove that the conduct in question would "materially and substantially interfere" with the operation of the school. In this case, the school district's actions evidently stemmed from a fear of possible disruption rather than any actual interference.

Yep. And that ruling has been augmented by Bethel vs Fraser to allow latitude around vulgar and obscene speech.
 
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Not totally. Public school students (and athletes) have some first amendment rights. That's already been decided. Thia case is about where the line is. "God Hates Fags" was protected in the Westboro case; it certainly wouldn't be protected in a school setting.

Who decides what "good citizenship is? Is taking a knee during the anthem "good citizenship"?
Tinker was based on the idea that the armbands were not distractions to the school day. Telling everyone to go eff themselves and then having that person in the locker room is a HUGE distraction. Amd again, racism most certainly IS covered by the first amendment. So, yeah, if she said the N-word there wouldn’t be much of a difference in regards to the argument. And using the N word damned sure should get you kicked off a team.
 
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I don't know if I want to live in a world where a 14 year old saying the F'bomb on social media and not directed at any specific people or person while not in school or at a school activity or while wearing a school uniform can have the rest of their high school career negatively impacted.

Every teacher, administrator, or coach that ever utters or writes the F word at any time better be fired on the spot in this school district if this holds up.

Saying "F the police" is protected as free speech. I don't see how an individual saying the same thing about school, while not in school or at a school activity or representing the school in uniform, isn't also protected. If she did this in school or at a school activity then that can be considered a disturbance, if she said it while wearing a school uniform it can be considered bad conduct. Either of those situations can and should have some discipline. If she made threats against any individual or wrote hate speech in her post, she should have discipline. In this situation, she should have gotten a talking to about what is appropriate and what isn't on social media, but beyond that I don't see how a government body like a school can punish her as significantly as they did.
 
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A little case reference -

B.L., represented through her parents and supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the school in federal court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; her attorney emphasized that her remarks were those of frustration made on her own social media account on her own time and contained neither threats nor any mention of the name of her school.[9] In October 2017, four months after B.L. was suspended from cheerleading, Judge A. Richard Caputo granted her a preliminary injunction forbidding the school from enforcing the suspension.[4] He held that B.L. was likely to succeed on the merits of her case and would suffer irreparable harm without the injunction. "Simply put, the ability of a school to punish lewd or profane speech disappears once a student exits school grounds."[22]

In March 2019, Caputo granted summary judgement for B.L.,[2] as the school could not curb B.L.'s off-campus speech per Fraser and that the speech did not disrupt the school's operation under Tinker.[9] He rejected the district's arguments that B.L. had waived her constitutional rights by joining the cheerleading squad based on previous case law, that it could not be liable for the coaches' actions since it had approved the code B.L. had signed, and that she had no constitutional right to be a cheerleader since it was irrelevant whether she did or not. "The District's concession that B.L.'s speech occurred off-campus is all but fatal", he said, finding that Tinker and Fraser's exceptions did not apply as her speech was neither disruptive nor on-campus respectively; he found it more similar to the mock MySpace profile at issue in J.S. ex. rel. Snyder. Caputo allowed that there were some other cases which allowed schools to impose greater speech limits on student-athletes, but those did not come into play since B.L. was not engaging in school-sponsored speech.[23]

The school district appealed to the Third Circuit. A three-judge panel acknowledged that "B.L.'s snap was crude, rude, and juvenile, just as we might expect of an adolescent",[8] but upheld the District Court's holding in her favor, again finding that both Tinker and Fraser did not support restricting her off-campus speech.[9] Writing for the panel, Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, agreed with Caputo that the speech had clearly been off-campus, thus punishing B.L. for it violated her First Amendment rights.[3]

Krause and the panel went further and reviewed the other circuits' approaches to the on-/off-campus distinction. While she agreed this was a difficult question to resolve, and commended their efforts, "we find their approaches unsatisfying in three respects."[24]

The Second Circuit had erred in applying the reasoning from Wisniewski, where a student's threatening action posed an undeniable foreseeability of disruption, to Doninger: 'What began as a narrow accommodation of unusually strong interests on the school's side ... became a broad rule governing all off-campus expression." The other circuits, Krause wrote, "have adopted tests that sweep far too much speech into the realm of schools' authority", especially given the reach of modern communications technology. "Implicit in the reasonable foreseeability test, therefore, is the assumption that the internet and social media have expanded Tinker's schoolhouse gate to encompass the public square." The nexus test the Fourth Circuit had used in Kowalski collapsed the analysis in a way she called "tautological ... Schools can regulate off-campus speech under Tinker when the speech would satisfy Tinker."[24]

Lastly, Krause found that whether they had crafted tests or not, the other circuits' approaches lacked "clarity and predictability." The Second and Eighth Circuits' foreseeability test, used in Wisniewski and S.J.W., "
 
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The whole issue is - she was punished for "speech."
Right. And now we will see if the Supreme Court is going to kneecap schools or not. I look forward to the no rules internet where someone can manipulate a video of a teacher raw dogging a student and the school can't discipline the student because of "free speech".
 
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A little case reference -

B.L., represented through her parents and supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the school in federal court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; her attorney emphasized that her remarks were those of frustration made on her own social media account on her own time and contained neither threats nor any mention of the name of her school.[9] In October 2017, four months after B.L. was suspended from cheerleading, Judge A. Richard Caputo granted her a preliminary injunction forbidding the school from enforcing the suspension.[4] He held that B.L. was likely to succeed on the merits of her case and would suffer irreparable harm without the injunction. "Simply put, the ability of a school to punish lewd or profane speech disappears once a student exits school grounds."[22]

In March 2019, Caputo granted summary judgement for B.L.,[2] as the school could not curb B.L.'s off-campus speech per Fraser and that the speech did not disrupt the school's operation under Tinker.[9] He rejected the district's arguments that B.L. had waived her constitutional rights by joining the cheerleading squad based on previous case law, that it could not be liable for the coaches' actions since it had approved the code B.L. had signed, and that she had no constitutional right to be a cheerleader since it was irrelevant whether she did or not. "The District's concession that B.L.'s speech occurred off-campus is all but fatal", he said, finding that Tinker and Fraser's exceptions did not apply as her speech was neither disruptive nor on-campus respectively; he found it more similar to the mock MySpace profile at issue in J.S. ex. rel. Snyder. Caputo allowed that there were some other cases which allowed schools to impose greater speech limits on student-athletes, but those did not come into play since B.L. was not engaging in school-sponsored speech.[23]

The school district appealed to the Third Circuit. A three-judge panel acknowledged that "B.L.'s snap was crude, rude, and juvenile, just as we might expect of an adolescent",[8] but upheld the District Court's holding in her favor, again finding that both Tinker and Fraser did not support restricting her off-campus speech.[9] Writing for the panel, Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, agreed with Caputo that the speech had clearly been off-campus, thus punishing B.L. for it violated her First Amendment rights.[3]

Krause and the panel went further and reviewed the other circuits' approaches to the on-/off-campus distinction. While she agreed this was a difficult question to resolve, and commended their efforts, "we find their approaches unsatisfying in three respects."[24]

The Second Circuit had erred in applying the reasoning from Wisniewski, where a student's threatening action posed an undeniable foreseeability of disruption, to Doninger: 'What began as a narrow accommodation of unusually strong interests on the school's side ... became a broad rule governing all off-campus expression." The other circuits, Krause wrote, "have adopted tests that sweep far too much speech into the realm of schools' authority", especially given the reach of modern communications technology. "Implicit in the reasonable foreseeability test, therefore, is the assumption that the internet and social media have expanded Tinker's schoolhouse gate to encompass the public square." The nexus test the Fourth Circuit had used in Kowalski collapsed the analysis in a way she called "tautological ... Schools can regulate off-campus speech under Tinker when the speech would satisfy Tinker."[24]

Lastly, Krause found that whether they had crafted tests or not, the other circuits' approaches lacked "clarity and predictability." The Second and Eighth Circuits' foreseeability test, used in Wisniewski and S.J.W., "
This is relevant. Thank you. I guess the case will depend on whether or not the action was deemed to "disrupt the operation of the school", but based on those cases I would say the decision favors the kid.
 
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This is relevant. Thank you. I guess the case will depend on whether or not the action was deemed to "disrupt the operation of the school", but based on those cases I would say the decision favors the kid.
The kid is 2-0 at this point, and has a lot of heavyweights behind her. As always, we shall see.

The school would have been better off by finding another reason to discipline the kid.
 
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The kid is 2-0 at this point, and has a lot of heavyweights behind her. As always, we shall see.

The school would have been better off by finding another reason to discipline the kid.
Well that's certainly what the result of this will be. "Why didn't I make the team". "I just don't think you were a good fit" will become a popular reason.
 
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