Supreme Court to hear cheerleader Brandi Levy s First Amendment case on student speech washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mark Sherman April 25, 2021 - 9:11 PM
WASHINGTON - Fourteen-year-old Brandi Levy was having that kind of day where she just wanted to scream. So she did, in a profanity-laced posting on Snapchat that has, improbably, ended up before the Supreme Court in the most significant case on student speech in more than 50 years.
At issue is whether public schools can discipline students over something they say off-campus. The topic is especially meaningful in a time of remote learning because of the coronavirus pandemic and a rising awareness of the pernicious effects of online bullying.
Arguments are on Wednesday, via telephone because of the pandemic, before a court on which several justices have school-age children or recently did.
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WASHINGTON - 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 has arrived at the Supreme Court, where it 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.
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Washington DC: Fourteen-year-old Brandi Levy was having that kind of day where she just wanted to scream. So she did, in a profanity-laced posting on Snapchat that has, improbably, ended up before the Supreme Court in the most significant case on student speech in more than 50 years.
At issue is whether state schools can discipline students over something they say off-campus. The topic is especially meaningful in a time of remote learning because of the coronavirus pandemic and a rising awareness of the pernicious effects of online bullying.
Arguments are on Wednesday, via telephone because of the pandemic, before a court on which several Supreme Court justices have school-age children or recently did.