Supreme Court Ruling Related to HS Athletics

I just told the kid that was verbally saying those things in our locker room one time to just not show up for the bus. He got pissed and said he quit. That way, it was on him.

But ya, I'd do something about it, but we're moving away from people having the ability to do it.

Are you sure she was suspended from school? That changes everything. Not doubting you, I just haven’t seen an article that says she was.

I just saw it on news not 15 minutes before replying. Yes, she was suspended from school and was told "you are lucky you are not expelled".

I was not aware that she was also suspended from school. My understanding was she was only suspended from the cheerleading squad for the following year.

The school district's actions are a massive overreaction. What should have happened is that the cheerleading coach and the administration should have called a meeting with the student and the parents and explained why the things she wrote online were not appropriate. Everything should have been carefully documented but there should not have been such an excessive punishment handed down. I think the school would have had a much better case if the student had posted the comments while she was on campus during school hours and if this was a subsequent offense.

Here's the thing...there was a distraction but the distraction was caused by the school district's overreaction. Had the district not have made a mountain out of a molehill, the whole incident would have blown over in a week or so. That's very similar to what happened in the Tinker case over 50 years ago. School authorities can't claim that they are justified in censoring a student's First Amendment rights to prevent or discipline a disruption of the learning environment when it is the school authorities themselves who are causing the disruption! 

It was an 8-1 decision from SCOTUS. Given the severe political polarization that exists in the country today, that is a resounding and shocking rebuke handed down to the school district. If I'm a taxpayer in that district, I would be really angry about the BOE blowing money on such legal tomfoolery. 

In every SCOTUS decision, context and nuance is everything, of course.

But, as I said previously, the biggest problem the school was going to have to overcome in their arguments to the Court was first, the comments were not made at school or on a school-issued device and second, this was the student's first offense for something of this nature.

For the vast majority of infractions, the approach to student discipline should be tiered. So, subsequent infractions or more serious infractions should result in greater penalties than first-time offenders or minor offenses.

Regarding your hypothetical scenario, my thoughts are that if a captain or a starter is publicly making statements like that, he's probably right. I am not good at my job if I have encouraged and allowed such negativity and disrespect. I would like to think that if I was in that situation, I would try and find another resolution short of a virtual death penalty, which is what the school in this case imposed on the cheerleader.

But here you are discussing facts of the case. That is not the Court's job-  there job is ruling in matters of law, particularly constitutional.  That this was her first offense is irrelevant no?  The location and device are indeed relevant on that basis. 

Are you suggesting that by simply not choosing this girl for the varsity team was encouraging and allowing negativity and disrespect?   I know you are not, but you do see what I am getting at. 

Remember, this was about suppression of speech, not necessarily the degree of punishment.  Could this ruling mean that not only could the kid not be suspended from your team, but that ANY discipline for such matters would be prevented? 

Ok...so I was being hyperbolic.

But, for a 14-year-old kid, getting suspended for a year is a huge deal. Probably felt like a death penalty to her. My point was that there were much less severe measures that could have been taken that would not have ended up in the Supreme Court.

And yes...if a football captain or starter (and not some run-of-the-mill malcontent) is saying such negative things publicly, I think that is probably indicative of a poor culture.

I don't think I necessarily agree here. The legal argument wasn't the degree of punishment, or severity of measure was it?  It was whether student's speech about schools/clubs is protected.  

Not a lawyer here, but something is either protected, or it isn't. 

Now, if you want to argue that a less sever measure would not have resulted in a law suit, that could and probably might be accurate.  But had that lawsuit been filed anyway, had the parents decided "nope, you can't punish my child at all"  even given  a much less severe measure, then theoretically everything should have played out just the same right? 

And if you keep her on the team and her teammates disapprove of her attitude those teammates will be considered the bullies.

But what is the definition of "disruptive"? In this case, the school district's lawyer admitted that only a few students were talking about it and it was only for a couple days. Then the whole thing blew over. It only became a disruption because the school district chose to make it one. Could a situation like this cause a major disruption? Possibly. But until a school district can prove that it is actually causing a disruption, I think that is a really poor reason to give school officials vast authority to restrict student speech.

The Court has ruled on freedom of speech cases regarding kids in school many times. In those cases, the Court doesn't always rule the same way (for example, compare Tinker v. Des Moines to Bethel Schools v. Fraser) for several reasons. First, the makeup of the justices (liberal vs. conservative) changes over time, which can change the majority. But, most importantly, it's because the facts are different in each case. In fact, discussing the facts of the case and then interpreting those facts in regards to Constitutional principles is the Supreme Court's only job.



So I would argue that the fact that this was this student's first offense is HUGELY relevant. For example, had this student (or other students, for that matter) at this school made similar social media posts in the past that were in fact disruptive to the learning environment or threatened the authority of school officials, it is entirely possible (if not probable) that the Court would have decided that the consequence (a year's suspension from the cheerleading team) was entirely inappropriate.



To your second point, no. I'm not suggesting that at all. In your previous post, you offered the example of a team captain or a starter publicly making social media posts that were highly critical of the coaching staff. You did not use the example of a 14-year-old freshman. I stand by my contention that if you are a coach and your team captain or your best players are publicly criticizing you on social media, you, as the coach, have a serious culture problem. I don't even think that would be debatable.



Regarding your last point, I would say it depends on the circumstances that led to the disciplining of the student. Generally speaking, the Court has ruled that the First Amendment does not protect lewd speech or speech promoting drug use on school grounds or during school sponsored activities. The Court has also ruled that schools can censor student speech that a reasonable person would think is endorsed by school officials. Lastly, schools can censor speech that can cause a disruption to the learning environment. In this particular case, the school district's punishment was not warranted because none of those standards were met.

There is also a key difference in what the student did. She didn’t specifically mention individuals or the school by name. To the hypothetical above - she didnt cuss out the coach, teammates or the school. She vented frustration in a non-specific way. So the idea that a kid can blast a coaches play calls with no punishment is not an apples to apples. I think a more accurate hypothetical would be - you lose a game and you have a kid make a video that says “We need to run the f*cking ball”. And then you suspend the kid off the team for 365 days.

Not sure that is right, or at least it is slicing it thin. She said "F--k school f--k softball f--k cheer f--k everything.”

On the other hand, as one of the Justices said at argument, if using swear words off campus can be punished (including by suspending you from the team), then schools/teams would be doing nothing but punishing.