Teenagers Being Disciplined By School For Incidents Off Campus Attorney Frederick Penney dives into the Brandi Levy case News provided by Share this article Share this article SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Managing partner of Penney and Associates Lawyers weighs in on the controversy over whether a school can discipline a child for activities that have occurred off campus? https://www.penneylawyers.com/ . HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Justice sign on a Law Courts building. New high resolution version shown below: This controversy revolves around the 2017 case of then 14-year-old Brandi Levy and the Mahanoy Area School District in Pennsylvania. Brandi was a junior varsity cheerleader at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. After one year of cheer Brandi was hoping that she would be moved up from junior varsity to varsity cheerleader. However, she was not moved up to the varsity cheer squad and she like many kids was quite disappointed. On May 28, 2017, Brandi Levy left a Snapchat on her social media showing a picture of her and a friend flashing the middle finger with the text "f*** school, f*** softball, f*** cheer, f*** everything." The snap was set to private, and it did not go out to the public, but admittedly to approximately 250 friends and acquaintances. The Snapchat picture was taken in front of a convenient store off campus with no school logos or even mention of Mahanoy Area High School. Five days later, on June 1, 2017, Brandi Levy sent the snap to one of the cheer squad coaches. After that she was taken out of class and allegedly advised that she was dismissed from the cheer squad for being disrespectful to the school, coaches, and other cheerleaders. Her parents immediately appealed to the school district to reconsider the punishment to no avail.