Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in its first case ever to address the discipline of students for speech occurring off-campus, on their own time, and online. The argument focused on what test should apply, the fate of political and religious speech under the proposed standards, whether schools can impose additional limits through extracurricular and athletic codes of conduct, and if the student in the specific case was too harshly disciplined for the speech in question.
A majority of the Court’s Justices appeared prepared to overturn the lower court decision, which had held that the longstanding “substantial disruption” test does not apply to off-campus student speech. A majority also struggled with whether—and, if so, how—to refine or replace that test with something clearer. Indeed, most seemed to lean toward deciding the case narrowly, finding that even if the substantial disruption test applies, the school did not meet it in this case. Such a decision would fail to provide school officials long-sought-after guidance on the bounds of their jurisdiction to address off-campus speech. Even though, as one of the attorneys noted, the “Court has not had a Tinker decision since Tinker,” there is a real chance that schools may have to wait decades more to get guidance from the highest court on this significant issue.
Continue Reading United States Supreme Court Hears Argument in Historic Student Speech Case