Students should not have to fear expulsion for expressing themselves on social media after school and off-campus, but that is just what happened to the plaintiff in C1.G v. Siegfried. Last month, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the student's expulsion violated his First Amendment rights. The court's opinion affirms what we argued in an amicus brief last year.
We strongly support the Tenth Circuit's holding that schools cannot regulate how students use social media off campus, even to spread "offensive, controversial speech," unless they target members of the school community with "vulgar or abusive language."
The case arose when the student and his friends visited a thrift shop on a Friday night. There, they posted a picture on Snapchat with an offensive joke about violence against Jews. He deleted the post and shared an apology just a few hours later, but the school suspended and eventually expelled him.
[...] The Tenth Circuit held the First Amendment protected the student's speech because "it does not constitute a true threat, fighting words, or obscenity." The "post did not include weapons, specific threats, or speech directed toward the school or its students." While the post spread widely and the school principal received emails about it, the court correctly held that this did not amount to "a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption" that would allow regulation of protected speech.
(Score: 2) by Snort on Thursday August 25 2022, @04:38PM (2 children)
The make up of the current Supreme Court makes me wonder how they will line up on this issue.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2022, @06:32PM (1 child)
That's easy. The conservative justices will side with freedom of speach, and the fascist, leftist justices will be on the side of censorship (because no one should be allowed to question the all-mighty State).
(And Roberts will toss a coin to make the decision for him, as he always does.)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Protagoras on Thursday August 25 2022, @08:11PM
Looks like you got your Supremes all backward. They gots to stop discrimination agin the religions, and make sure they can criminalize sinning, and keep tabs on the menstrual cycles of women's rooms, so they can know who to burn as a which.
But the real problem is that on the internets, no one knows whether you are pregnant, or aristarchus, or not.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Jiro on Thursday August 25 2022, @06:16PM
They didn't, and shame on the EFF for misrepresenting it (at least they link to the decision so if you read it, you can see how they misrepresented it). The court was ruling on a motion to dismiss. The fact that the court ruled in the student's favor means that the student can now take it to trial. If he wins at the trial, that will then mean that a court has determined that it violated his First Amendment rights. It hasn't happened yet.