A Cheerleader's Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown

[IsItJustMe]

Source: The New York Times - Adam Liptak Mon, December 28, 2020, 7:10 AM CST

WASHINGTON — It was a Saturday in the spring of 2017, and a ninth grade student in Pennsylvania was having a bad day. She had just learned that she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and would remain on junior varsity.

The student expressed her frustration on social media, sending a message on Snapchat to about 250 friends. The message included an image of the student and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with text expressing a similar sentiment. Using a curse word four times, the student expressed her dissatisfaction with “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.”

Though Snapchat messages are ephemeral by design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a coach. The school suspended the student from cheerleading for a year, saying the punishment was needed to “avoid chaos” and maintain a “teamlike environment.”

The student sued the school district, winning a sweeping victory in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia. The court said the First Amendment did not allow public schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds....CONTINUED.....

Link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/cheerleaders-vulgar-message-prompts-first-131037750.html
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I believe in free speech, as well as the freedom to face the consequences of that speech. I am concerned that the Supreme Court will uphold this ruling, and will only promote the decline of our already crude deteriorating public conversation (especially after what we have seen over the last four years).

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I also believe in free speech, as well as facing its consequences, but I hope

the Supremes do uphold the ruling. The remedy for bad is speech is not suppression, it's more speech.

[spanone]

34. ⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧

[lunatica]

50. Agreed.

Period.

[Blue_true]

53. What about race hatred speech, or religious intolerant speech? I believe that the Court

should rule for the cheerleader, but is should dramatically narrow the 3rd Circuit ruling. The kid didn't do any hate speech or call anyone out, she was just pissed about being passed over for varsity cheerleading, but what about a kid that racially attacks people or Muslims of some other non-christian religion in a similar way as the girl railed against being left off the varsity squad?

[NYC Liberal]

61. "Hate speech" is and should be protected by the first amendment.

Free speech should mean just that.

[Beakybird]

2. Hmm. What about racist speech?

I'm ambivalent about this because what if a kid said, "Fuck the police" after the local police harrassed a fellow student of color? Would you want the school to be able to punish this student?

[IsItJustMe]

4. I realize it's a two edge sword, with a thousand different situations ln different contexts.

But with the rise of fascism and RW hate speech in this country, I am concerned that that minorities will feel the blunt of this. I also have some ambivalent feelings about it.

[jimfields33]

5. I don't want the school involved in anything outside of school

If it’s a racial situation get with police and/or lawyer. Schools should control from 8:30 to 3 and that’s it.

[IsItJustMe]

33. What about a school bullying situation?

It does not seem to matter if the poster, with malicious intent, posted it while at school or not at school. It seems like schools are responsible for the safety of our children. But hey, if it wasn't posted at school, so what. There are all types of situations that can arise that can potentially put students at risk by other students.

I think that stripping schools of any attempt at being proactive in these given situations is going to lead to bad results. Of course schools can overreact, as I think they did in this case, but they still need to tools to deal with trying to maintain some sense of safety toward their students.

[Blue_true]

54. with the prevalence of social media "outside of school" takes on a new meaning.

Is it ok for a kid to viciously bully another kid on social media while at home, but say or do nothing to that kid in school? I see your point about the police handling it, but it seems they tend to defer to the schools, or at least check with schools, if the bully kid doesn't issue a physical harm thread to the other kid via social media.

[MyOwnPeace]

7. Not to be "chicken-shit," but.......

I would rather the school could concentrate on tests, papers, lessons, athletics, and proms. As a former teacher and administrator, I was busy enough without having to put in my own time delving through school law and constitutional law.
I WOULD appreciate clear and definitive laws telling me and my students what we can say, where we can say it, and what happens if somebody f**ked up!

I understand the delima - Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School Dist., 393 U.S. 503 ruling was in 1969, before cassettes, computers, the internet, CD's, smartphones, and wi-fi. For a "Constitutional Originalist" to make a ruling based on Ben Franklin's latest upgrade of his printing press, this is gonna' be a tough fight. I don't see it any different than considering a right to possess firearms such as muskets when you could by an AK-47. It's all the same - right?

Seriously, give us clearly defined laws and policies and it's all easy-peasy! (not saying MAKING those laws or policies would be easy.)

[Volaris]

11. If the kid said it in class, or on school grounds then fine. Otherwise,

No. Not even a little bit. Besides 'fuck the police' doesnt strike me as a rascist sentiment.

[Beakybird]

14. I meant two different situations. Racist speech off of school grounds I would want regulated.

Offensive speech that doesn't target fellow students, like fuck the police, fuck school, I wouldn't want regulated.

[Volaris]

15. Got it. Yes, were on the same page then :)

[Blue_true]

55. So you want a narrow ruling? the 3rd Circuit three open the flood gate

and technically would allow ANY speech, as long as a student didn't do it on school property or at a school sponsored off-campus function.

[maxsolomon]

17. The NYT had a long article on a similar topic yesterday.

Last edited Mon Dec 28, 2020, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

9th grade white student got her learner's permit, posted a Snapchat video saying "I can drive, Niggaz!".

A biracial classmate saved the video, and then released it 4 years later, when the offending student began classes at U of Tennessee this fall. She's now withdrawn from school.

I know my Millennial stepdaughter would say that was justified; I'm ambivalent. Kids make stupid choices.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

21. That happened in Leesburg, Virginia.

Sun Dec 27, 2020: A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning

ISSUEALLTHEPARDONShat Retweeted

What most strikes me about this story, which is troubling in a great many different directions, is that we are saddling children with the consequences of decades of adult failures, and then calling sporadic excessive punishment "progress."

Link to tweet

A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning

A white high school student withdrew from her chosen college after a three-second video caused an uproar online. The classmate who shared it publicly has no regrets.

By Dan Levin
Dec. 26, 2020

[To read more stories on race from The New York Times, sign up here for our Race/Related newsletter.]

LEESBURG, Va. — Jimmy Galligan was in history class last school year when his phone buzzed with a message. Once he clicked on it, he found a three-second video of a white classmate looking into the camera and uttering an anti-Black racial slur. ... The slur, he said, was regularly hurled in classrooms and hallways throughout his years in the Loudoun County school district. He had brought the issue up to teachers and administrators but, much to his anger and frustration, his complaints had gone nowhere.

So he held on to the video, which was sent to him by a friend, and made a decision that would ricochet across Leesburg, Va., a town named for an ancestor of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee and whose school system had fought an order to desegregate for more than a decade after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling. ... “I wanted to get her where she would understand the severity of that word,” Mr. Galligan, 18, whose mother is Black and father is white, said of the classmate who uttered the slur, Mimi Groves. He tucked the video away, deciding to post it publicly when the time was right.

{snip}

{In June,} friends began calling, directing her to the source of a brewing social media furor. Mr. Galligan, who had waited until Ms. Groves had chosen a college, had publicly posted the video that afternoon. Within hours, it had been shared to Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter, where furious calls mounted for the University of Tennessee to revoke its admission offer. ... By that June evening, about a week after Mr. Floyd’s killing, teenagers across the country had begun leveraging social media to call out their peers for racist behavior. Some students set up anonymous pages on Instagram devoted to holding classmates accountable, including in Loudoun County.

Link to tweet

The consequences were swift. Over the next two days, Ms. Groves was removed from the university’s cheer team. She then withdrew from the school under pressure from admissions officials, who told her they had received hundreds of emails and phone calls from outraged alumni, students and the public.

{snip}

[Hortensis]

23. She was a star cheerleader and U Tennessee has national-championship

cheerleading teams, so being accepted there was her dream. She's attending a local community college now.

Her punishment for that one action is very severe. IN AND OF ITSELF, wildly disproportionate to her offense. Kicking her out of UT was politically and economically influenced by the intense adverse publicity and hate-full reactions by the usual scum of the earth on social media.

Is she a nice girl or a nasty little creep, some typical mix? When she spoke out for #BLM this year was it completely disinterested or positioning for college admission? We don't know, just that she got run down by a societal bullet train.

[redstatebluegirl]

24. I am not sure the punishment equals the crime, however...

I always tell young people not to post anything online that they would be embarrassed to see come up in a job interview. This post would definitely be one of those things. I had a young woman a few years ago who lost a job with a large architectural firm who did a "webscan" of her facebook, twitter and other social media. There were numerous posts showing her very drunk at parties and using slurs in her posts after she had been drinking. She came to me when they told her why she didn't get the job and I said "all of our actions have consequences" .

I am grateful I grew up in a time without the internet, but these young people know what can happen, it isn't secret. I feel like the best thing that can happen is to publicize this stuff so young people stop and think before posting.

That said, I always believe that kids mimic parents and other adults in their lives until they learn it isn't a good thing. Her parents must have used that slur at some point. If I remember from the article she was from Indiana. I spent some time there, not surprised that someone would say that and not think anything of it.

Actions have consequences.

[maxsolomon]

25. She was in Virginia.

I wouldn't lay this at Indiana's feet specifically (although I agree with you - my Sister lives in Greg Pence's district); that usage of the term is common in Hip Hop music.

The double standard in usage (acceptable, even affectionate, for African-Americans, a career-killer for White Americans) can be difficult for children to understand. Yes, ignorance is no excuse, but it should mitigate the response.

[JonLP24]

70. It isn't really a double standard

It depends on the context and how it is used. One thing AAVE plays a part which makes it very different than a white person saying the word.

I have heard women refer to each other with the B word as a term of endearment but it wasn't the same thing as like when Yoho called AOC the B word.

[ripcord]

77. The problem is having a word that is only acceptable for some to use.

[JonLP24]

82. Not really

This isnt complicated for me.

One version is based on hate & with the history behind it is very bad.

The C word is very bad in the US but in Europe it doesnt quite mean the same thing and it isn't as offensive.

[Hortensis]

26. Yes. Fwiw, your example had a pattern of repetitive misbehavior

that gave some indication of the person she was, rather than an isolated behavior. Did UT have more information that they based an earnestly responsible and moral decision on, I hope? Who knows, maybe she was born the kind of nasty twit who hurts many throughout life and escapes most of the consequences. But maybe not.

My experience is that of course upbringing is enormously important but that during adolescence what the group thinks is overwhelmingly important. They're very far from mature brain development, and for many judgment is not just in the toilet but weirdly different from that of both childhood and adulthood. Adolescence even alters interpretation of moral issues, a crazy period normal people eventually develop out of and someday shake their heads in wonder at.

I just suspect a nicer and less angrily reactionary society might have chosen a different set of consequences. Bad timing.

[redstatebluegirl]

28. I grew up in small white town full of racists

I can honestly say I have never used that word. I think she was internet and culturally savvy enough to know it was wrong.

[Hortensis]

30. I'm sure you're right. My issue isn't that what the girl

did wasn't wrong but about what are just consequences for her behavior or behaviors.

[RobinA]

76. Well, I Hope She Was

a nasty creep who deserved this, but probably, as you say, a combo of nasty and nice. I have an issue with the revenge-seeker as well. If he's any kind of future decent guy I would think he'd live to regret his actions, including his smug e-mail. I'm not a big fan of sitting on stuff for years and then playing gotcha at a later date. Without some reason for the delay.

[Hortensis]

78. Oh, sure, this will follow him also, anywhere his name is searched on.

This new dynamic actually is a return somewhat to those of village societies, where everyone knew or heard about everyone else and reputations, whether earned or imposed by others, were for life. The period in between when people could move and leave them behind are past. Now the internet's the village well.

[wellst0nev0ter]

62. She used the hard "r"

I'm not posting the video here, but let's be accurate.

[maxsolomon]

73. Would that have made a difference?

Z, not R? I didn't watch the video, just read the NYT story which omitted the offending word (they have RULES, that NYT). I assumed it was the AAVE version given the context.

[wellst0nev0ter]

83. Nope

And believe me, it makes all the difference.

[RobinA]

75. I Would Favor

a fairly narrow ruling for the cheerleader. In the learner's permit case it's a no go. She said it four years ago? Move on. You can't ruin kids' lives for something they did as an even younger kid, unless we're talking about a felony or something super serious that indicates they could be a continuing danger.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

79. How is her life ruined?

[MineralMan]

3. While it was a rather juvenile outburst on her part,

she is, in reality, a juvenile. However, all people have the right to free speech, even minors.

That said, there are sometimes consequences for the use of one's rights.

[maxsolomon]

6. The word was apparently "Fuck". Whoop de doo.

There are times when reporting a peer's actions to authorities is appropriate, and times when it is merely snitching.

Stop snitching.

[COLGATE4]

9. This

[MenloParque]

8. Fuck that school

My kid has the right to express her 1A rights and her opinions about her school off campus. The Supreme Court will uphold the ruling as they should.

[IsItJustMe]

12. Yeah, fuck everything!!! LOL

[MenloParque]

22. A bit of exaggeration

But I do get it!! Mahanoy/Elks school district went way overboard with a year suspension from the team. Trampling the students 1A rights and pearl clutching over the F word! Not the right Constitutional lesson for students a short drive from the city of brotherly love!

[USALiberal]

13. Can a employer punish you for posts about terrible boss? Nt

[IsItJustMe]

20. The vast majority of employers can fire you for almost any reason they can think of.

It's called "Employment At Will". There are exceptions to this dealing with age, sex, and race I think. But if an employer really wanted to get rid of a person, they would just simply use another excuse to do so.

[LakeArenal]

10. The public makes coaching and teaching harder.

How do you “teach” civility and moral compassing when there is no avenue to teach “consequences”?

Public opinion on has changed from parent support of teachers and coaches to adversarial roles.

I know if I had had a coach suspend me, my folks would say, good, that’s what you deserve and quit flipping people off.

[Mr.Bill]

32. Maybe teach that

people having less respect for you is a consequence.

[kcr]

35. Did your folks expect your coaches and teachers

to completely take over 24/7 and relieve your parents of their duty?

[LakeArenal]

41. Everyone in my family were teachers

Teachers should not have to teach civility or respect. Kids should be taught things at home that apparently aren’t important enough so it’s pushed on to teachers.

[MicaelS]

66. Teachers and coaches should have ZERO power over students outside school.

Period. If it is not concerning a school based function, it is none of their business.

[LakeArenal]

81. Then folks need to quit riding teachers for things parents should be doing.

Frankly free speech both ways. You want to flip a public bird at someone then n reap the consequences.

If you flipped your boss off and he gets pissed... too bad about your free speech

[Moostache]

16. Speech is free. Consequences are paid in full. Over-reactions are ridiculous.

A teenager said "fuck"? Four whole times? Are these hypocritical puritans serious?
Ever listen to a currently popular record? Know what "WAP" is?

Coarsening discourse? FUCK THAT...profanity is merely a blunt instrument of communication, but MORE communication is the key, not LESS and NEVER CENSORED.

Any situation - including racial ones - can be improved if and only if the words are de-powered and the ideas producing them are examined and debated in the open.

I have heard my kids playing video games with their friends online...every other word is fuck, shit, cock or cunt. In their context, these are shorthand used to express frustration or to convey disrespect towards something happening in virtual reality but in THE REAL WORLD, these kind of things are not appropriate...so are the WORDS the problem, or is it the display of inherent disrespect that bothers people more?

Teenagers make hideously stupid decisions hourly (I have 4 of them in my house right now and I guarantee you that in the 5 minutes since I started this reply, there have been a minimum of 8 bad decisions made, bordering on heinously stupid)...but censoring speech or punishing without examination and understanding of the reasons for such outbursts solves exactly ass-lint nothing.

NEVER allow words to sway you, instead seek to understand the motives and intentions of the words to gain knowledge than may be applied to become influence to then produce the desired change in vocabulary and teenage angst.

[Bluesaph]

18. The parents are supposed to do the disciplining

The schools have been placed in the role of parent. I want free speech and free consequences too.

But a year off the team is overboard. Too bad the parents couldn’t think of a better way to handle an over the top punishment without suing.

[mainer]

19. The F word? Is that all? The word we hear on TV every day?

If that's it, then this is a huge overreaction.

[Withywindle]

60. Yeah, I don't see why she needs to be punished at all

This isn't hate speech. This isn't an attack on another person. This is just an expression of anger and frustration that nobody would blink an eye at if she was in college or older. It's REALLY disingenuous to compare to a white kid saying the n-word or something like that, they are NOT in the same ballpark.

[NutmegYankee]

27. There was already a SCOTUS case on the phrase "fuck the draft".

100% legal speech. The school and coach are screwed.

[meadowlander]

37. Wasn't there also a one about a 14 year old making a sexually suggestive nomination for student

council at a school assembly?

The court found that that school has a right to suspend students for obscene language as part of their function to prepare students to enter civil discourse as adults.

The key difference here is that the comments didn't happen on school property. But the school does have a right to discipline students for offensive speech.

Here you go: Bethel School District v Fraser

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethel_School_District_v._Fraser

[NutmegYankee]

38. It has to be disruptive to a school event

The post in this case reflected a personal feeling and did not disrupt a school event. It is that very fact that handed the school district two losses in a row.

[meadowlander]

39. I thought it just had to undermine the educational purpose of the school.

A student shouting obscenities in class or in the hallways could likewise also be able to be disciplined even though the class wasn't an "event".

Bethel School District v Fraser found that the "educational purpose" of the school extended to inculcating habit of good citizenship including not using obscene or offensive language.

The issue would be whether that "mission" extends to what students choose do when they are not on "school time". Does the school have any jurisdiction over what its students post on social media (which other students may be viewing on school time or on school property)?

[NutmegYankee]

42. Do you really want to go down the road of school regulating every minute of a student's life?

Especially given the crazy nutjobs that tend to populate school boards? Your examples happen on school grounds. Simply put, the school does not have power over what a student legally did at home. Since no law bans (nor can) profane speech, the school violated the student's constitutional rights.

[meadowlander]

45. I don't have a view one way or the other. I'm just trying to identify the relevant issue.

I'm pointing out that "no law bans profane speech" is incorrect. There is precedent in Supreme Court decisions (which I cited above) for not allowing students to use obscene language where is it disruptive to the mission of education. Many schools have dress codes, for example, that ban clothing that includes disruptive language.

Profane speech is banned in schools when it interferes with the educational purpose of the school.

What someone posts on social media is a grey area. It's difficult to determine where the student was when they were posting it and where the recipients are when they are reading it. If she posted it in the school cafeteria on her lunch break and all the other students were reading it there, is that substantially different to her passing around a note saying the same thing?

The fact that the student was commenting on a school-based activity is probably also relevant. Arguably she was "participating" in the school business/community, including extracurricular activities, even if she wasn't physically at school or it wasn't during the school day. That's different to having a rant about her parents or job online and then the school getting involved.

If she was working on a school assignment on the weekend at her house and punched another student for not doing their share, would you think the school still has a right to discipline her even though the incident happened on the weekend at her house?

What about cyber-bullying or revenge porn? Do you think the school has an interest if one group of its students are harassing another student online even if the bullying is happening outside of school hours? I would argue in those situations that the school has a duty of care for its students even outside of school hours and off grounds.

[NutmegYankee]

46. I disagree.

No law bans profane speech. The punishment for profane speech on school grounds relates to behavior while in school. It was not tailored to the speech itself.

You seek to ask hypotheticals but let's stay on the specifics of this case. The post was made on a weekend day, at home. Those facts are not disputed by either party in the case. The student was not on school time or on school property.

As for your other hypotheticals, I was that fat nerd who was mercilessly bullied for years in school and outside. Schools don't do jack to help. Even having both of my parents meet with the principle didn't help. Incidents outside are subject to normal law and a few "simple assault" cases were pursued. Despite my liberal views, I learned the hard way that sometimes the ONLY answer is violence. When I finally snapped and beat the ever-loving fuck out of the bully, it stopped. The next bully likewise got pounded into the street. And it stopped. A decade of agony ended. So I say again - schools do not do jack about bullying.

[meadowlander]

56. Do you think they should though?

School is one of the only places American citizens are legally required to be at any given time.

In placing that requirement on students to attend classes with strangers who may be hostile to them, I think there is also a special obligation to protect the health and safety of students that the state are putting in that situation.

And I think you can argue that that obligation extends to behavior that happens off school grounds if the impetus for the behavior is the fact that the state is forcing these two people to spend six hours a day in each others' company.

My niece is gay and some of the other students at her school were cyber-bullying the shit out of her and the school intervened with the other girls' parents. Fortunately they accepted their responsibility for raising little shitheads and put a stop to it but if they had gone the court route, I don't think it would have been an open and shut case of "it didn't happen on school property, therefore the school needs to butt out."

Schools are a special class of community within a community and I don't think that community exists only 8-3 Monday to Friday on school property.

[NutmegYankee]

59. You mix up prohibitions on behavior from prohibitions on speech.

Criminal harassment is a behavior, and is punishable both in school and in courts. Assault and battery are likewise crimes in both places. Normally bullying and harassment continue on school grounds, giving the school power to intervene. Rarely do kids stop their bad behavior in school and then resume it off school grounds. I know from my experience that isn't the case. My mother would photograph the bruises I sustained in school. Even verbal taunts or rumors on school grounds give the school power to intervene - it is harming the educational setting by making the victim feel unsafe.

The case we discuss here is not a bullying or harassment case. It was an immature lash-out. The school should have counciled her that this was not acceptable behavior, but once they actually handed down a punishment tailored specifically to her speech outside of school, they violated the law. I hold very strong civil libertarian views (been a card carrying member of the ACLU my entire adult life) and will never sign up for government to regulate speech. As I mentioned earlier, religious right wackjobs on a school board could turn that right back on us. And they would do so in a heartbeat.

[jalan48]

29. One of the great things Obama did was talk about "teachable moments". It would be great to

see people given the opportunity to atone for their mistakes and then move forward with their lives.

[Mr.Bill]

31. When Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine

was involved in a lawsuit regarding freedom of speech that went to the Supreme Court, he showed up for the hearings one day wearing a shirt that said Fuck This Court on the front of it.

He won the case in the end.

[maxsolomon]

47. Flynt was put on trial in Hamilton Co. (Cincinnati) when I was in High School

In '77, for obscenity. It's the case the movie People vs Larry Flynt was based on.

He created a pamphlet that made the argument that War was the real obscenity, not pornography, and illustrated it with graphic photos of atrocities: the Holocaust, Napalm victims, disfigured WW1 vets, etc.

He mailed it to every registered voter in the county. It quickly made its way into every school despite parent's efforts to keep it from us.

[DavidDvorkin]

36. I'm glad she sued, and I'm glad she won

The school's response was an absurd overreach.

You know, the world has been going to the dogs for thousands of years, but it never seems to get there.

[PJMcK]

40. The young woman may have won her court fight...

...but she needs to grow up. She over-reacted when she didn't make the varsity cheerleading squad. She was still on the junior varsity squad. Part of growing up is learning to deal with defeats and losses. This young woman needs to reevaluate her priorities.

Her self-righteous and obnoxious behavior reminds me of Trump's refusal to acknowledge that he lost the election. Both are childish.

By the way, for the sake of argument, let's say that the school puts her on the varsity squad. How would the other cheerleaders feel about the situation? Frankly, I'd be afraid of building a pyramid if the team has that kind of rancor swirling around.

[Crunchy Frog]

57. Wow. Hyperbole much?

We're talking about a ninth grader expressing an emotion, and that's comparable to a 74 year old president wrecking the country in an attempt to overturn an election?

She's childish and not "grown up" because she's a child in ninth grader FFS! And even grownups are allowed to express emotion when they get frustrated or upset about something, and that doesn't mean that they're Donald Trump.

Damn. This place sometimes.

[PJMcK]

72. I apologize for not expressing myself well

I meant to insult Trump by comparing him to a ninth grader not the other way around.

Regarding the girl's story, I strongly suspect that there's a lot more going on behind this tale. High school cheerleading is a blood sport. Regardless, I find her behavior to be unacceptable but that's my opinion.

Sorry for my mistake and I wish you a happy new year.

[Tarc]

44. I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court upholds the ruling

and an extra-large go-fuck-yourself to that school district for good measure.

[Dem2]

48. Ninth grade? I told the principal to "go fuck yourself!" in front of everybody

And I'd do it again today.

Even many Democrat's appear to be rightwingers based on this thread.

What.

The.

FUCK!?

[Crunchy Frog]

58. That makes you the equivalent of Donald Trump according to some here.

[Dem2]

71. My late father taught me one important credo

"Resist authority"

Obviously there's an understanding that one should only do so for a valid reason/cause.

Nonetheless, I will not blanket statement "throw under the bus" or finger point at a young person who loses their temper and violates certain protocols that "upset" old codgers. My message to old codgers "you were young once too, stop and think before you react".

[Crunchy Frog]

49. Yes it's just you.

[IsItJustMe]

51. Great for me. You follow the herd, you step in sh!t.

Edit to add: Have a great day?

[Trenzalore]

52. This is tricky

Public schools are part of the government. The student doesn't have an employee/employer relationship with the school and is compelled to go there by law.

Not sure how I think on this.

[onenote]

63. I have no problem with speech having consequences. So long as the government isn't the one

responsible for those "consequences"--including government run school systems. The government imposing consequences on unpopular speech is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to prevent.

[MicaelS]

64. If you do not like this ruling...

Then you do not believe in REAL free speech. Period.

[IsItJustMe]

74. No in-between huh?

You are either for us, or against us. Seems rather extreme. Period.

[Initech]

65. First rule of social media: Never say anything you will regret later!

Free speech does have consequences in a public forum!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

67. I've always approached this subject that being on a team was a privilege and not a right.

At least that’s how it was when I played high school sports.

We had to sign a code of conduct that covered your actions in school AND outside of school.

Is this an over reaction? Probably. But aiming F bombs at your team and the coaches isn’t too bright.

[franzwohlgemuth]

68. The first amendment states...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The important word there is Congress. The Bill of Rights list what the government cannot do. Now, one could make the argument that since the schools are ran by said government, the school has a say, but that's a flimsy argument.

[StarfishSaver]

69. Times are so different now

"Back in my day ..." if the school punished me and my friends for what we said outside of school, we'd have been suspended year round. The difference was that we didn't document our comments on social media where everyone in our circle, family, community and the world could see it. We just said it, our words floated into the atmosphere where it dissolved forever and and that was the end of that.

I am so glad I came of age during a time when I could screw up and, contrary to my teachers' warnings, it didn't end up on my "permanent record."

[MineralMan]

80. Everyone has the right of free speech.

There is no right to be on a school team, however. Generally, membership on such a team is a privilege.

That's the sticking point here. That student didn't make the varsity cheer team, presumably after a competition of some kind. Naturally, she was disappointed. Being a middle school child, she reacted negatively and publicly, using some bad language against the school and the team.

Following the rules of sportsmanship is generally one of the rules of any school team. Breaking those rules, on or off campus, can result in losing the privilege of participation.

So, she exercised her right to freedom of speech. Unfortunately, her speech was unsportsmanlike, which cause her to be removed from the team.

Rights and privileges are two different things.

[LanternWaste]

84. What specifically leads you to believe as such?

"I am concerned that the Supreme Court will uphold this ruling, and will only promote the decline of our already crude deteriorating public conversation"

What specifically and objectively leads you to believe as such (other than guesses and anecdotes)?

[IsItJustMe]

86. No term papers for me today. LOL

[Klaralven]

85. So I guess we have given up on the idea that schools help develop the character of their students.

So much for Dr Martin Luther King --

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”