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You may not realize it, but the U.S. Supreme Court protected free speech last week, even if it took a foul-mouthed teenager to cause the issue.
At issue was the case of Brandi Levy, who was a 14-year-old high school freshman in Pennsylvania when she ran afoul of local school officials, according to Carolina Journal. As teens are wont to do, Levy took to the social media website Snapchat to share disappointment over not making her school’s varsity cheerleading team. Her rant included a string of curse words starting with the letter “F” as well as a raised middle-finger salute.
Levy was not on campus when she made her social media post, but school officials still suspended her from cheerleading activities for a year anyway. Thankfully, her parents sued, saying the school doesn’t have the right to punish her behavior when she’s away from the classroom.
Fortunately for her – and us – eight of the nine justices agreed. The only justice who disagreed was Clarence Thomas, who has long taken the rather non-conservative position that students generally do not have free speech rights.
“It might be tempting to dismiss B.L.’s words as unworthy of the robust First Amendment protections discussed herein,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion. “But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary.”
That’s exactly what free speech is all about – we must protect speech that we don’t personally like if we want to ensure that our own preferred speech is protected. The writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall said it best in 1906 when she wrote, as an illustration of Voltaire’s beliefs, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
While the Supreme Court ruled for Levy, at the same time the justices did declare that schools may punish some off-campus speech, especially if it is harassing, bullying, cheating or otherwise disruptive, according to The Center Square. However, those reasons make sense, not just because someone was offended by a curse word or three.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote: “If today’s decision teaches any lesson, it must be that the regulation of many types of off-premises student speech raises serious First Amendment concerns, and school officials should proceed cautiously before venturing into this territory.”
Levy, who is a college student today, praised the court’s decision. (Alas, no information is available on the overall state of her vocabulary nowadays.)
“I never could have imagined that one simple snap would turn into a Supreme Court case, but I’m proud that my family and I advocated for the rights of millions of public school students,” Levy said.
Yale law professor Justin Driver – author of The Schoolhouse Gate, a book about these issues – called the decision incredibly significant.
“It’s the first time in more than 50 years that a public school student has prevailed in a free speech case at the Supreme Court,” Driver said. “Public school students should be dancing in the streets.”
Since anything that protects free speech in one area usually helps protect free speech across the board, we should all be grateful. The high court took a common-sense approach that hopefully is a positive sign of things to come.
David Brown is publisher & editor of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 837-5122; or email, dbrown@cherokeescout.com.