This week, the Court considers when the First Amendment limits the ability to discipline students for private off-campus speech.
The Court holds that a public school may, consistent with the First Amendment, discipline students for private off-campus speech that bullies or harasses particular classmates.
The panel: Judges Gould, Collins, and Silver (D. Ariz.), with Judge Collins writing the opinion and Judge Gould concurring.
Key Highlight: "[Plaintiff] again emphasizes that he did not ever intend for the targets of his posts to ever see them. But having constructed, so to speak, a ticking bomb of vicious targeted abuse that could be readily detonated by anyone following the [social media] account, [Plaintiff] can hardly be surprised that his school did not look the other way when that shrapnel began to hit its targets at the school. And, as we have explained, recognizing an authority in school administrators to respond to the sort of harassment at issue here presents no risk that they will thereby be able to punish students engaged in protected political speech in the comfort of their own homes. [Plaintiff's] actions had a sufficient nexus to [his school], and his discipline fits comfortably within Tinker's framework and does not threaten the marketplace of ideas at [his school]." (Internal quotation marks and alterations omitted.)
Background: Plaintiffs Cedric Epple and Kevin Chen were students at Albany High School. In 2016, Epple created...
