Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L.

141 S.Ct. 2038

210 L.Ed.2d 403

MAHANOY AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT, Petitioner

v.B. L., a Minor, BY AND THROUGH Her Father, Lawrence LEVY and Her Mother, Betty Lou Levy

No. 20-255

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued April 28, 2021

Decided June 23, 2021

Michael I. Levin, David W. Brown, Levin Legal Group, P.C., Huntingdon Valley, PA, Lisa S. Blatt, Counsel of Record, Sarah M. Harris, Eden Schiffmann, William D. Ferraro, Kristen A. Dewilde, Williams & Connolly LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

David D. Cole, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Washington, D.C., Jennesa Calvo-Friedman, Vera Eidelman, Arianna Demas, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY, Seth F. Kreimer, Philadelphia, PA, Witold J. Walczak, Counsel of Record, Sara J. Rose, American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, PA, Arleigh P. Helfer III, Theresa E. Loscalzo, Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP, Philadelphia, PA, for Respondents.

Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.

A public high school student used, and transmitted to her Snapchat friends, vulgar language and gestures criticizing both the school and the school's cheerleading team. The student's speech took place outside of school hours and away from the school's campus. In response, the school suspended the student for a year from the cheerleading team. We must decide whether the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit correctly held that the school's decision violated the First Amendment. Although we do not agree with the reasoning of the Third Circuit panel's majority, we do agree with its conclusion that the school's disciplinary action violated the First Amendment.

I

A

B. L. (who, together with her parents, is a respondent in this case) was a student at Mahanoy Area High School, a public school in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. At the end of her freshman year, B. L. tried out for a position on the school's varsity cheerleading squad and for right fielder on a private softball team. She did not make the varsity cheerleading team or get her preferred softball position, but she was offered a spot on the cheerleading squad's junior varsity team. B. L. did not accept the coach's decision with good grace, particularly because the squad coaches had placed an entering freshman on the varsity team.

That weekend, B. L. and a friend visited the Cocoa Hut, a local convenience store. There, B. L. used her smartphone to post two photos on Snapchat, a social media application that allows users to post photos and videos that disappear after a set period of time. B. L. posted the images to her Snapchat "story," a feature of the application that allows any person in the user's "friend" group (B. L. had about 250 "friends") to view the images for a 24 hour period.

The first image B. L. posted showed B. L. and a friend with middle fingers raised; it bore the caption: "Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything." App. 20. The second image was blank but for a caption, which read: "Love how me and [another student] get told we need a year of jv before we make varsity but tha[t] doesn't matter to anyone else?" The caption also contained an upside-down smiley-face emoji. Id. , at 21.

B. L.’s Snapchat "friends" included other Mahanoy Area High School students, some of whom also belonged to the cheerleading squad. At least one of them, using a separate cellphone, took pictures of B. L.’s posts and shared them with other members of the cheerleading squad. One of the students who received these photos showed them to her mother (who was a cheerleading squad coach), and the images spread. That week, several cheerleaders and other students approached the cheerleading coaches "visibly upset" about B. L.’s posts. Id. , at 83–84. Questions about the posts persisted during an Algebra class taught by one of the two coaches. Id. , at 83.

After discussing the matter with the school principal, the coaches decided that because the posts used profanity in connection with a school extracurricular activity, they violated team and school rules. As a result, the coaches suspended B. L. from the junior varsity cheerleading squad for the upcoming year. B. L.’s subsequent apologies did not move school officials. The school's athletic director, principal, superintendent, and school board, all affirmed B. L.’s suspension from the team. In response, B. L., together with her parents, filed this lawsuit in Federal District Court.

B

The District Court found in B. L.’s favor. It first granted a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction ordering the school to reinstate B. L. to the cheerleading team. In granting B. L.’s subsequent motion for summary judgment, the District Court found that B. L.’s Snapchats had not caused substantial disruption at the school. Cf. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist. , 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). Consequently, the District Court declared that B. L.’s punishment violated the First Amendment, and it awarded B. L. nominal damages and attorneys’ fees and ordered the school to expunge her disciplinary record.

On appeal, a panel of the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court's conclusion. See 964 F.3d 170, 194 (2020). In so doing, the majority noted that this Court had previously held in Tinker that a public high school could not constitutionally prohibit a peaceful student political demonstration consisting of " ‘pure speech’ " on school property during the school day. 393 U.S., at 505–506, 514, 89 S.Ct. 733. In reaching its conclusion in Tinker , this Court emphasized that there was no evidence the student protest would "substantially interfere with the work of the school or impinge upon the rights of other students." Id. , at 509, 89 S.Ct. 733. But the Court also said that: "[C]onduct by [a] student, in class or out of it, which for any reason—whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior—materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is ... not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech." Id. , at 513, 89 S.Ct. 733.

Many courts have taken this statement as setting a standard—a standard that allows schools considerable freedom on campus to discipline students for conduct that the First Amendment might otherwise protect. But here, the panel majority held that this additional freedom did "not apply to off-campus speech," which it defined as "speech that is outside school-owned, -operated, or -supervised channels and that is not reasonably interpreted as bearing the school's imprimatur." 964 F.3d at 189. Because B. L.’s speech took place off campus, the panel concluded that the Tinker standard did not apply and the school consequently could not discipline B. L. for engaging in a form of pure speech.

A concurring member of the panel agreed with the majority's result but wrote that the school had not sufficiently justified disciplining B. L. because, whether the Tinker standard did or did not apply, B. L.’s speech was not substantially disruptive.

C

The school district filed a petition for certiorari in this Court, asking us to decide "[w]hether [ Tinker ], which holds that public school officials may regulate speech that would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school, applies to student speech that occurs off campus." Pet. for Cert. I. We granted the petition.

II

We have made clear that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression," even "at the school house gate." Tinker , 393 U.S., at 506, 89 S.Ct. 733 ; see also Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. , 564 U.S. 786, 794, 131 S.Ct. 2729, 180 L.Ed.2d 708 (2011) ("[M]inors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection" (alteration in original; internal quotation marks omitted)). But we have also made clear that courts must apply the First Amendment "in light of the special characteristics of the school environment." Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier , 484 U.S. 260, 266, 108 S.Ct. 562, 98 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988) (internal quotation mark omitted). One such characteristic, which we have stressed, is the fact that schools at times stand in loco parentis , i.e. , in the place of parents. See Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser , 478 U.S. 675, 684, 106 S.Ct. 3159, 92 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986).

This Court has previously outlined three specific categories of student speech that schools may regulate in certain circumstances: (1) "indecent," "lewd," or "vulgar" speech uttered during a school assembly on school grounds, see id. , at 685, 106 S.Ct. 3159 ; (2) speech, uttered during a class trip, that promotes "illegal drug use," see Morse v. Frederick , 551 U.S. 393, 409, 127 S.Ct. 2618, 168 L.Ed.2d 290 (2007) ; and (3) speech that others may reasonably perceive as "bear[ing] the imprimatur of the school," such as that appearing in a school-sponsored newspaper, see Kuhlmeier , 484 U.S., at 271, 108 S.Ct. 562.

Finally, in Tinker , we said schools have a special interest in regulating speech that "materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others." 393 U.S., at 513, 89 S.Ct. 733. These special characteristics call for special leeway when schools regulate speech that occurs under its supervision.

Unlike the Third Circuit, we do not believe the special characteristics that give schools additional license to regulate student speech always disappear when a school regulates speech that takes place off campus. The school's regulatory interests remain significant in some off-campus circumstances. The parties’ briefs, and those of amici , list several types of off-campus behavior that may call for school regulation. These include serious or severe bullying or harassment targeting particular individuals; threats aimed at teachers or other students; the failure to follow rules concerning lessons, the writing of papers, the use of computers, or participation in other online...