B.L. by Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District (“Levy”), Case No. 3:17-CV-1734, 2017 WL 4418290 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 5, 2017). District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania grants cheerleader’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction and enjoins school district from dismissing her from the high school cheerleading squad for posting a profane “Snap” on Snapchat outside of school.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff, a high school cheerleader, posted a “Snap” featuring a photo of her and a friend holding up their middle fingers with the text, “f[***] school f[***] softball f[***] cheer f[***] everything” superimposed on the image. Plaintiff took the Snap at a local convenience store on the weekend when she was not participating in any school activity. The Snap did not specifically mention the high school or picture the high school. Further, the Snap was only shared with Plaintiff’s friends on SnapChat (a social media platform), and thus was not available to the general public.
Shortly after Plaintiff sent the Snap, one of the cheerleading squad’s coaches informed Plaintiff that she was being dismissed from the cheerleading squad. The coach produced a printout of Plaintiff’s Snap and told Plaintiff that the Snap was “disrespectful” to the coaches, the school and the other cheerleaders.
At the preliminary injunction hearing, the coach testified that she suspended Plaintiff from the cheerleading squad because of Plaintiff’s use of profanity. The school district (“District”) acknowledged that the Snap was produced off of school property during the weekend when no school event was in progress.
DISCUSSION
The U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) held that “to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion,” school officials must demonstrate that “the forbidden conduct would materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.” Tinker sets the general rule for regulating school speech, and that rule is subject to several narrow exceptions. One exception is set out in Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), which permits school officials to regulate “‘lewd,’ ‘vulgar,’ ‘indecent,’ and ‘plainly offensive’ speech in school.”
The District did not allege that it had punished the Plaintiff because Plaintiff’s Snap materially and substantially interfered with the operation of the school. Instead, Plaintiff was punished...
