After reading this article and reading some of the comments from the justices, I couldn’t help but to ask the question, is this issue really worthy of the SCOTUS?
As a former educator, all the school needed to do was to to have a conversation with the girl, acknowledge that they understand her desire to blow off some steam and find a means of reconciling. Complete waste of time for the SCOTUS in my view.
Looks like local authorities should be able to handle this.
Completely agree, this situation is by no means a constitutional crisis.
It’s a question of free speech. Why shouldn’t the Supreme Court hear it?
I think they should be involved in this, just like they need to be involved with the right to bear arms cases.
It has much more to do with School Policy & Discipline procedures.
How is that? She used social media off school property and not during school hours, yes?
What gets me is that the high court picks the cases that it wants to hear. From the information in this article it sounds like they are very sorry that they decided to hear this case. But I agree with you. Free speech rights should be heard by high court.
At what point does a social media post become a form of a threat and who should decide that?
A question too vague to apply to this case.
This is the issue at its core, from the link:
"Wednesday’s case did not involve such serious speech. It was brought by Brandi Levy, a 14-year-old high school cheerleader, who failed to win a promotion from the junior varsity cheer team to the varsity.
“I was really upset and frustrated at everything,” Levy explained in an NPR interview."
Is this really a case for the SCOTUS?
Does it matter that her post was angsty unseriousness? Isn’t what’s at question the school’s reaction?
The problem for the Court here is that a school has every right and an obligation to address issues that make their way INTO the school as this social media post did.
Define ‘into’, here.
Are you really suggesting that ‘snooped by an angry parent-coach’ is penetrative behavior by the student?
From the link:
“Brandi’s post hit school like a small-town social media bomb; the school deemed the post disruptive to cheerleader morale”
In the school I worked at our administration would have addressed it as well. Would my administration have kicked her off the team? Probably not, likely ask her to reconcile with her coach and teammates.
The question before the Court is whether the precedent from Tinker applies outside of the building.
It is not a silly question - even if the context putting it in front of rhe Court is silly.
Even the ACLJ has weighed in, hilariously.
Their position is speech outside of school is protected, except not in this case, because swear words aren’t free speech.
I don’t think you’re showing how people reading a social media post, of their own volition, is identical to going into a school and causing willful disruption.
And are you really suggesting that the onus for morale is on a person who didn’t make the team?
From the link:
“By a vote of 7 to 2, the high court ruled at the time for the first time that kids do have First Amendment free speech rights at school, unless school officials reasonably forecast it will cause disruptions.”
WHO makes the decision of what is a disruption that needs to be resolved?
That’s a very slippery slope. Schools don’t have rights.
