Posted on 04/26/2021 7:09:10 AM PDT by GIdget2004
The high school cheerleader relegated to the JV squad for another year responded with a fleeting fit of frustration: a photo of her upraised middle finger and another word that begins with F.
“F--- school, f--- softball, f--- cheer, f--- everything,” 14-year-old Brandi Levy typed into Snapchat one spring Saturday. Like all “snaps” posted to a Snapchat “story,” this one sent to about 250 “friends” was to disappear within 24 hours, before everyone returned to Pennsylvania’s Mahanoy Area High School on Monday.
Instead, an adolescent outburst and the adult reaction to it have arrived at the Supreme Court, where the case could determine how the First Amendment’s protection of free speech applies to the off-campus activities of the nation’s 50 million public school students.
“This is the most momentous case in more than five decades involving student speech,” said Justin Driver, a Yale law professor and author of “The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind.”
“Much of the speech from students is off-campus and increasingly online,” Driver said. “When I talk to school administrators, they consistently tell me that off-campus speech bedevils them, and the lower courts desperately need some guidance in this area.”
That shouldn’t be a surprise, as cellphones have become an extension of almost every teenager’s hand and social media a preferred mode of communication. And for the past year, many students have not gone near a school campus, with their “speech” happening in their homes during Zoom classes.
The First Amendment does not “force schools to ignore student speech that upends the campus environment simply because that speech originated off campus,” says a brief filed by Mahanoy Area School District, which upheld the school’s decision to kick Levy off the cheer squad.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
SCOTUS takes a case about a foul-mouthed petulant brat screaming “F This and F That” but can’t address the stolen POTUS election...
How low we’ve fallen.
An agent of the government, in this case public school administrators, attempted to regulate the speech of this student while not in school. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the censors, it will open the floodgates of repression.
No time for election fraud but they have time for this.
Ever been to Mahanoy Area? Mahanoy City, Frackville, etc.? They make Hazleton look like the outskirts of Paris.
And free speech still needs to be settled? In Granny’s day they settled this sort of thing with a bar of soap applied orally.
This............................
““F-— school, f-— softball, f-— cheer, f-— everything,” 14-year-old Brandi Levy typed into Snapchat one spring Saturday.”
...and the thing is, in another 10 years she’ll likely find an IDIOT guy to marry her.
Never been out of the US and are we supposed to know where Hazelton is?
CONTROL OBEY
If a student can be punished at school for social media posts and recorded utterances away from school, they can be punished for “hate speech” in private or semi-public social media posts.
Well, yes. Hazleton has made considerable political news in recent years and freepers tend to be better politically informed than the average American.
I agree. This case is a very big deal. It can affect us all in the future.
SCOTUS exists not to ensure justice, but to ensure the illusion of justice.
The only people who should be punishing this girl is her parents and I suspect her parents have a lot to do with her attitude anyhow.
Because the constitutional basis of those two things is exactly the same.
Everybody is already being punished for any and all “hate speech” on any public post anyway. Perhaps you’ve heard of “cancel culture”?
One once would have thought the cheer squad was supposed to be composed of exemplary students with good morals. Of course these days expulsion from a public school would most likely be doing the student a favor.
I would be shocked if this student (and her no doubt insipid parents) tried the route of apology and making amends rather than finding a lawyer and suing to appease the little darling.
For any Court to rule anything other than “case dismissed, parents to pay all legal fees and court costs stemming from this frivolous case” indicates that the United States of America has become a Nanny State.
Being stupid has consequences.
Even for 14 year olds.
Her not being in school was not a problem. What she said about school was.
Can you imagine this moron in 15 years saying the same thing about her employer? Even though she is not at work when she cusses them out?
I didn’t read the article but felt compelled to comment. My daughters cheer for both high school and an outside cheer organization. The guidelines they have to follow for high school are pretty strict. They can be kicked off the team for many different infractions. This includes being late to practice or a game, they have to arrive at least an hour early for games.
A couple weeks ago one of the ferels on the team got into a fight with a tiny white girl on the team. I saw the video and the ferel started the fight. So ends up that both cheerleaders were removed from the team along with the 15 day suspension. My feeling is that the ferel be removed but the one defending herself should not have been removed. But with the social justice and everything racist society I’m sure the ferel factions in our area would have been up in arms. For what it’s worth both kids are honor roll students.
Thankfully my daughters only post pictures on social media. They just scan the pictures and dont get involved with all the dialog.
When our gym coach heard us curse, we had to run laps until our legs burned.
When at lunch, Sister Christine heard us curse, she literally cried (couldn’t believe “her boys” would say such things!) and then we had to mop the cafeteria.
Now it goes to the Supreme Court. Imagine that.
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