The US Supreme Court ruled in favour of a teenager who had been expelled from her school cheerleading squad due to a social media post. Indeed, it has been stated that the Mahanoy Area School District had breached Brandi Levy’s freedom of speech following the First Amendment. Moreover, this case had a deep impact on free speech rights for millions of American school students.
The social media post
In May 2017, when Brandi was 14 years old, she uploaded a Snapchat post after an unsuccessful try-out for the school’s varsity team. In the post, Brandi and a friend were raising their middle fingers which were addressed to the cheerleading squad, the school, softball and “everything”. Additionally, she criticized another girl’s selection in the squad.
A girl took a post’s screenshot and showed this screenshot to a friend who, unfortunately, was the daughter of one of the cheerleading coaches. As a consequence, Brandi has been expelled from the squad for a year.
Why did she sue?
As a result of the coaches’ act, Brandi Levy sued the Mahanoy Area School District claiming that her expulsion violated her First Amendment right to free speech. The case was firstly dealt with by the Court of Appeal, which ruled in favour. Therefore, the school district decided to take the case to the Supreme Court hoping they would rule in their favour.
The school argued that the staff must take action against students for speech or actions which happen outside the school to safeguard the pupils from bulls, racism or harassment which usually happen on social media.
On the other hand, the American Civil Liberties Union which represented Brandi Levy argued that students have to be protected by censorship or monitoring.
After hearing the two arguments, the Supreme Court established that the school violated Ms Levy’s right to freedom of speech as the post did not cause any problem to the school.
Ms Levy was extremely shocked by what happened. She could not imagine that a single snap would turn into a Supreme Court case.
However, despite everything she went through, she is deeply proud to have won such an important cause. In the following statement, she said that is truly important for young people to express themselves without worrying about being punished by their school.
However, it is of vital importance to make clear that the Supreme Court declared that school administrators have the right to punish student speech that happens online or on-campus if it obstructs classroom study.
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