Supreme Court to hear Mahanoy free speech case
MAHANOY CITY – The Mahanoy Area free speech lawsuit is headed to the highest court in the land.
The United States Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will hear the case of Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., a minor, over the school’s handling of a student’s expletive-laced Snapchat post from four years ago.
In 2017, B.L. was removed from the Mahanoy Area cheerleading squad for a Snapchat post expressing frustration at activities and life after being relegated to Junior Varsity on the squad.
The post, which, as the app is designed, was only able to be seen by her and her followers, read, with expletives censored, “f— school f— softball f— cheer f— everything,” accompanied by a photo of her and a friend raising their middle fingers.
Another student, the daughter of a cheerleading coach, saw the post, showed her mother, and B.L. was subsequently removed from the team.
The issue has been in federal courts ever since, and B.L. and family have won on appeal twice. The school district has appealed for the final time to the highest court.
Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, B.L. and family claims the school district’s punishment violated her First Amendment rights. Within days, a federal district court judge ordered the school to reinstate B.L. to the team, ruling that the school had exceeded its authority in punishing B.L. for off-campus speech, a decision that a federal appeals court affirmed last year. B.L. remained a member of the cheerleading team until she graduated in 2020.
“As a parent, I know that sometimes kids do foolish things. But when my daughter is on her own time and out of school, it’s my role as a parent to address her behavior,” said Larry Levy, B.L.’s father, in a media release. “In this situation, I did that and felt that the school overstepped its bounds. We’re in this case because we don’t want to see schools have the power to discipline students for what they do on their own time. Leave that authority to parents.”
“The beating heart of the Bill of the Rights is the idea that government power is limited,” Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, adds. “This public school wants the nation’s highest court to grant it sweeping new authority to punish students for speech that occurs away from school and causes no disruption. We look forward to explaining to the justices why the authority that the school is seeking is antithetical to the concept of free speech that is the foundation of the First Amendment.”
“Allowing public schools to punish student speech that takes place off-campus outside of school hours would teach students the wrong lesson – that they have no free speech rights anywhere,” Sara Rose, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said. “Requiring students to refrain from criticizing their sports team or extracurricular activity when they are off-campus as a condition of participating in that activity, as the school district did in this case, is inconsistent with core First Amendment values. We will explain to the court why the First Amendment limits the school’s ability to punish students for this type of speech, and we hope that the court will agree with the four previous rulings in this case that recognized that.”
In a statement posted to Facebook on January 2, Mahanoy Area defended its pursuit of the case in federal court.
Mahanoy Area School District stands behind its restrained approach to disciplining student speech-which is the same approach that thousands of schools across the country have taken for generations,” the school wrote. “We are proud of our extracurricular programs. Learning to participate in team sports and abide by team rules teaches students lifelong lessons about responsibility and teamwork.”
“Thus, when BL broke team rules and posted messages that she admitted would undermine team morale and chemistry, BL’s coaches responded with a temporary, team-related punishment: suspending her from the team for the year. Obviously, BL’s family disagrees with that punishment, and responded by bringing a federal lawsuit,” the school continued. “That lawsuit has produced a judicial decision that leaves schools powerless to respond to speech that is directed at the school environment and would have a devastating effect on students’ well-being during the school day. The School District views that decision as inimical to our basic mission of safeguarding student welfare.”
“Groups representing 1.7 million teachers and thousands of school districts nationwide have supported our efforts to reverse this unprecedented ruling in the Supreme Court, and we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant review,” the school concluded.
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Schools have every right to discipline students.
Remedial civics lesson time for Mahanoy Area school officials. Their punitive action, in this case addressing what happened off school property and school time, exceeds their authorities.