Speech: <\/strong>Chief Justice John Roberts to represent Supreme Court at Biden speech\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Donors: <\/strong>Supreme Court conservatives question donor disclosure requirement<\/span><\/p>\n “I mean she used swear words, you know, unattractive swear words \u2013 off-campus. Did that cause a material and substantial disruption?” asked\u00a0Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. “If swearing off-campus did, I mean, my goodness every school in the country would be doing nothing but punishing.”<\/p>\n As the justices grappled with how to draw a line on a school’s power to regulate speech, one theme emerged: A desire by both some of the court’s liberals and conservatives to craft a narrow ruling rather than one with broad First Amendment implications. Breyer said he was “frightened to death” of trying to write a legal standard for what is permissible.<\/p>\n Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with Breyer that “we probably can’t write a treatise here and shouldn’t write a treatise here.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Civil liberties groups fear the court will turn schools into speech police, limiting students’ First Amendment rights. School districts\u00a0counter that they must be free to discipline off-campus speech that leaches into the classroom and the locker room, including to protect students\u00a0from\u00a0bullying that can be amplified online and miles from the schoolyard.\u00a0<\/p>\n The case began when Brandi Levy, a rising sophomore at Mahanoy,\u00a0failed to make the\u00a0varsity cheer squad. She took to Snapchat, exhorting\u00a0her followers to “F\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 school\u00a0f\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 softball\u00a0f\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 cheer\u00a0f\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 everything.” She also included a picture of her and a friend\u00a0\u2013 both of whom were off-campus at the time\u00a0\u2013\u00a0raising their middle fingers.<\/p>\n Another student captured a screengrab of the message and showed it to the team’s coaches. Levy was booted from the junior varsity cheer squad and, after appealing to school authorities, her parents sued the district in federal court.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brandi Levy wears her former cheerleading outfit while standing outside Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pa., on April 4, 2021. This photo was provided by the American Civil Liberties Union. (Photo: Danna Singer, AP)<\/span><\/p>\n At the center of the dispute is\u00a0a landmark 1969\u00a0Supreme Court decision,\u00a0Tinker v. Des Moines, that reaffirmed students’ First Amendment rights. But the court said that schools may regulate student speech in cases where\u00a0it “materially disrupts” the operation of the school. The school district wants that same standard to apply to off-campus speech.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kavanaugh, who has two school-age children,\u00a0repeatedly questioned the reaction of the team and whether the punishment was a fit response to Levy’s post.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “As a judge and maybe as a coach and a parent, too, it seems like maybe a bit of an overreaction by the coach,” Kavanaugh said. “She blew off steam like millions of other kids have when they’re disappointed about being cut from the high school team or not being in the starting lineup or not making all league.”<\/p>\n Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has seven children, said that while there might be good “policy reasons”\u00a0for extending a school’s authority beyond campus, such as bullying or cheating, she questioned what precedent the court could rely on to\u00a0rule in favor of the school district.\u00a0<\/p>\n “A\u00a0lot of the questions that you’ve gotten today show a concern, including in this case, that schools abuse\u00a0this authority, and that they punish things that maybe don’t cause substantial disruption \u2013 or political speech or religious speech that they shouldn’t,” she told the lawyer for the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n A federal district court ruled for Levy in 2019, finding that \u2013 even if the Tinker standard applied off-campus \u2013 the speech she used wasn’t disruptive enough to trigger disciplinary action. The Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit took the decision a step further, finding that Tinker does not apply to off-campus speech.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Supreme Court is set to decide the case in June.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2021\/04\/28\/USAT\/3fa7e8e9-a6d2-4b92-b5de-02b9667780e6-AP_Supreme_Court-Student_Speech_1.jpg?width=540&height=&fit=bounds&auto=webp\")
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