"When I talk to school administrators, they consistently tell me that off-campus speech bedevils them, and the lower courts desperately need some guidance in this area."

Said lawprof Justin Driver, quoted in "A cheerleader’s Snapchat rant leads to ‘momentous’ Supreme Court case on student speech" (WaPo). 

The case is about a 14-year-old girl's Snapchat that said, "Fuck school, fuck softball, fuck everything." She got suspended from the cheerleading squad. 

From the article:

The [school] district, supported in the Supreme Court by the Biden administration, poses a number of problems: the student who publishes answers to the test; the player who undermines the coach with an avalanche of tweets about his play-calling; the disruptive student across the street with a bullhorn.

More seriously: “The laws in the District of Columbia and at least 25 states require schools to address off-campus harassment or bullying that substantially disrupts the school environment or interferes with other students’ rights,” the brief states. “Students who encourage classmates to kill themselves, target black classmates with photos of lynchings, or text the whole class photos of fellow students in compromising positions, do not limit their invective to school hours.”

It sounds as though school officials feel a lot of pressure to reach way beyond the school. This is where a strong free-speech doctrine from the Court could really help. Make it clear when the schools can't act and deprive these officials of the power to yield to this pressure. Let the schools teach the kids when they're in school — including teaching good behavior and how to speak intelligently and respectfully — and take away their weapon of punishing children for their out-of-school speech.

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.