Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

It was far from assured that Brandi Levy’s case would interrupt this distressing anti-speech streak. After all, Ms. Levy was suspended not from school, but from only the cheerleading team. On this theory, some might believe it should be permissible for educators to hold students who participate in extracurricular activities to the most exacting standards of conduct. Relatedly, Ms. Levy’s series of Snapchat f-bombs did not protest anything so lofty as American foreign policy. The court might have been tempted to construe the First Amendment as too momentous — too consequential — to vindicate a disappointed teenager’s salty outburst after being cut from the varsity cheer squad. Fortunately, though, it resisted that temptation. It is particularly commendable that the court did not permit the ubiquity of speech in the age of social media to distort its analysis. The opinion’s protection for off-campus speech is heavily qualified and studiously avoids articulating anything like a clear rule.But the fact that it afforded even some protection in this context should not be overlooked.

In a post earlier this week I explained the problems with the “heavily qualified” opinion that avoided “anything like a clear rule”, which, I assert, will have a consequential long run effect on the writing of rules regarding student conduct outside of school that clearly has a link to the day-to-day operation of school itself. But as one who has long asserted that educators can hold students who participate in extracurricular activities to the most exacting standards of conduct I am especially concerned that this might not be the case moving forward. As a Superintendent trying to reduce the consequences of student drinking and stem the widespread use of drugs by student athletes, I helped the HS Principal and AD write a “contract” that a students needed to agree to if they chose to represent the school in a student activity. A parent at the HS challenged the decision and took the district to court where we prevailed on the theory that we COULD hold students who participate in extracurricular activities to the most exacting standards of conduct. If a professor of law at Yale sees this as being undercut by the decision supporting the student cheerleader I am certain that somewhere in America a parent of a student will be ready to take someone to court should their child violate such a contract. My heart goes out to the high school administrator or coach who is subject to the suit and to the Superintendent and school board as well.

As for the SCOTUS, most of whom are far removed from the travails of executing their decisions and many of whom have no personal experience inside a public school, when you render a decision like this that has serious consequences for schools across the nation, I hope that you will avoid one that is heavily qualified and studiously avoids articulating anything like a clear rule.