Does Mahanoy apply at the College Level?
Mahanoy is just the latest in the courts’ awkward efforts to make K-12 student free speech cases apply to older, more mature students…but this time, it may make more sense.
He, She or It: Fighting Over Pronouns
Pennsylvania students want classmate banned from campus for opposing pronoun policy
A petition has been started to ban a university student from campus, after he criticized a policy that requires students to address other students using their preferred pronouns. Apparently the university had informed students that "action could be taken" if they used the wrong pronouns. No litigation yet, but we'll be keeping an eye on this one.
B.L.’s discipline is overturned — but who won the case?
Yesterday the Supreme Court issued its decision in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. by and through Levy, the case involving a tenth-grade student who, disappointed that she did not make the varsity cheerleading squad, went home and posted a picture of herself on Snapchat with her middle finger raised, with the caption “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” The Supreme Court agreed with the Third Circuit that removing the student from the JV cheer squad for her sophomore year violated her First Amendment rights. However, the Supreme Court disagreed with the Third Circuit – or, at least, the two judges in the majority – as to why it violated her First Amendment rights.
This is important, because while the Supreme Court’s decision was obviously a loss for the Mahanoy Area School District, I would go so far as…
Bad Facts make bad law
As some of you know, I have been following the B.L. by and through Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District case since last year, and reported a few months ago that it had been appealed to the United States Supreme Court (which agreed to hear the case in January). I am honored to announce that I was asked by the National Association of Pupil Services Administrators (NAPSA) (as well as its member organization, the Pennsylvania Association of Pupil Services Administrators), to file an amicus brief at the Supreme Court on behalf of its members. NAPSA is the only national organization that focuses its efforts on the development of administrators and programs designed to serve the academic, social, emotional, and physical needs of all students.
…Cheerleaders to the Court!
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New York Times- A Cheerleader’s Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown[/caption]
As expected, the Mahanoy Area School District has asked the Supreme Court to consider the Third Circuit's decision in B.L. by and through Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District, 964 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2020), which I posted about back in July and which involved a high school cheerleader who, after learning that she did not make the varsity squad, posted a picture of herself and a friend to Snapchat with their middle fingers raised and the caption “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” The Third Circuit ruled for the student, and in doing so held that Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District – which allows schools to discipline students for speech that “materially and substantially…
Cheerleaders and the Internet: B.L. by and through Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District
B.L. by and through Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District, 2020 WL 3526130 (3d Cir. 2020)
B.L. was a high school student who failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad her sophomore year. Disappointed, she and a friend took a picture of themselves at a local store with their middle fingers raised and posted it to Snapchat, with the caption “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” When the cheer sponsors learned about the picture, they removed B.L. from the junior varsity squad, for violating team rules that required cheerleaders to “have respect for [their] school, coaches, … [and] other cheerleaders”; avoid “foul language and inappropriate gestures”; and refrain from posting “negative information regarding cheerleading, cheerleaders, or coaches…on the internet.”
The Third Circuit ruled that the removal of B.L. from the cheerleader squad violated her right to free speech under the First Amendment, which the ACLU has…