She Won!
(The First Amendment: “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.”)
I spent most of my professional career at West Liberty State College (now West Liberty University) teaching English and journalism, and one of my favorite courses was Mass Communication Law. The class lent itself to lively discussions about various court rulings, and an examination of the First Amendment proved to be particularly entertaining as the students debated such controversial topics as burning the American Flag. In fact, as the faculty adviser for the student newspaper, I found myself involved in a free speech case.
I don’t remember the exact year, but I certainly recall the case. The problem arose when the cartoonist for the newspaper drew a rather clever picture dealing with PMS, and some of the stodgy professors thought it shouldn’t have been printed. They took their objections to the college president, who listened to their concerns and then ruled in favor of the newspaper. It was a nice victory for freedom of the press, but that was back in the day before the advent of all the social media like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. So just how much freedom of expression should today’s students enjoy in communicating with each other in the various social mediums? The answer seemed rather clear in a ruling handed down last week by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Brandi Levy (B.L.) was a sophomore at Mahanoy City High School (Mahanoy, Pa.) back in 2017, when she tried out for the varsity cheerleading team. She didn’t make it. Instead, she landed a spot on the junior varsity team. She also didn’t get the position she wanted on the school’s softball team. She was understandably upset. What did she do? She did what many teenagers do today to express their disappointment. She turned to the social media.
While she was at a Cocoa Hut convenience store, she expressed her disappointment to her peers by posting the following two messages on Snapchat: “F— school f—softball f— cheer, f— everything.” Accompanying these words was an image of Levy and a friend with raised middle fingers.
Her second posting read, “Love how me and (another student) get told we need a year of jv before we make varsity but tha[t] doesn’t matter to anyone else.” Accompanying this post was the image of a smiley face emoji displayed upside-down.
B.L.’s messages came to the attention the Mahanoy City School’s cheerleading coaches and the principal. This group believed that B. L.’s messages exceeded rules, and they decided to suspend her from cheering for the upcoming year. B.L. took the case to court, and it ultimately landed in the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in Levy’s favor.
At issue in the case was whether a school can discipline students for what they say off the school grounds. And in an 8-1 decision for B.L. the Supreme Court said, “While public schools may have a special interest in regulating some off-campus student speech, the special interests offered by the school are not sufficient to overcome B.L.’s in this case.”
B.L. finally won her case after four years. Hooray for freedom of speech! But wait a minute. Notice the that SCOTUS left the door open for schools to “…have a special interest in regulating some off-campus speech… .”
B.L. won her freedom of speech case, but the Supreme Court did not slam the door in the school’s face. Justice isn’t always absolute.
Unspeakable Tragedy
In Surfside, Fla., a 12-story condo partially collapsed, and rescuers are frantically trying to make their way through the rubble in the hopes of finding some survivors. It doesn’t look good! So far, as of Friday, the death toll stands at four, and at least 159 victims still are unaccounted for.
Because the rubble is so tightly packed, the rescue dogs are having difficulty being of effective assistance. At this writing, a possible reason for the tragedy has not been forthcoming. But how and why does a condo suddenly just fall down?
A Fair Sentence?
In other legal news, Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison for the murder of George Floyd. It was a killing hard to miss because the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for in excess of nine minutes has been shown a plethora of times. Is a sentence of 22 plus years harsh enough? Opinions will vary.
Good News
All Amazon viewers can rejoice because the seventh and final season of Bosch is now available for streaming. This outstanding police drama based on a character Michael Connelly created in his novels and starring Titus Welliver is set in Los Angeles, where LA Detective Harry Bosch lives and works. Harry is not a stereotypical police officer, and this means that he doesn’t always enjoy smooth sailing in his job. But he’s a great character, and if you have never seen this show, you can find all the previous seasons on Amazon Prime. Happy viewing!
Ponder This:
If peanut butter cookies are made from peanut butter, then what are Girl Scout cookies made out of?
~ George Carlin
