WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a Pennsylvania public school wrongly suspended a cheerleader over a vulgar social media post.
The court voted 8-1 in favor of Brandi Levy, who was a 14-year-old high school freshman when she expressed her disappointment over not making the varsity cheerleading team on Snapchat with a string of curse words and a raised middle finger.
Levy was not in school when she made her post, but she was suspended from cheerleading activities for a year anyway. In an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, the high court ruled that the suspension violated Levy’s First Amendment rights.
But the justices did not stop schools from disciplining students for what they say off campus.
District officials were seeking to allow school officials to punish speech they deem disruptive to school operations that students post on Snapchat, Facebook and other social media platforms even while the students are not on school property.
The dispute hinged on the yearlong suspension from the cheerleading team that Levy received as punishment for a fleeting expletive-laced Snapchat post she published in 2017 while out of school on a weekend. She was 14 years old at the time and had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad for her Schuylkill County high school.
During arguments before the court in April, Lisa S. Blatt, the attorney for the school district, said “off-campus speech, particularly on social media, can be disruptive.”
“She used unattractive swear words off campus. Did that cause a material and substantial disruption? I don’t see much evidence it did,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said. “If swearing off campus did, my goodness, schools in this country would do nothing but punishing.”
Blatt replied that Levy’s cheerleading coach “reasonably forecasted that someone who berates with a profane gesture and words is not somebody you’d want at the bottom of the pyramid.”
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh questioned the reasonableness of Levy’s punishment.
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“As a judge and maybe a coach and a parent, too, it seems like maybe (her suspension was) a bit of an overreaction by the coach,” Kavanaugh said. “She’s competitive. She cares. She blew off steam like millions of kids have done when they’re disappointed about being cut from their high school team.”
Attorney David Cole of the American Civil Liberties Union, who represented Levy, argued that school districts shouldn’t be given “24/7” authority to punish student speech.
PennLive’s Matt Miller contributed to this post.
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