Cheerleader’s Social Media Rant Gets Supreme Court Review Today, And Why It Matters To Students Everywhere
April 28, 2021
WE'VE GOT SPIRIT, YES WE DO
|Nina Totenberg with NPR reports on the case before justices today involving a high school cheerleader posting on social media after not making it onto the varsity team. She posted, “F*** school f*** softball f*** cheer f*** everything.” She was suspended from cheerleading for the rest of the year, and Totenberg points out that she DID make varsity the following year. But she can’t claim total “V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!” just yet. After her suspension, she and her parents went to court and argued the school district had no right to discipline her for what she put on her own Snapchat. Totenberg writes, “More than a half-century ago, the court, in a 7-to-2 vote, ruled that students do have free speech rights at school unless the speech is disruptive. Now, the justices are being asked to clarify whether, in the internet age, schools can punish students for off-campus speech.”
TOP-ED
|Aaron Tang writes for USA Today about the cheerleader’s Supreme Court case and argues it’s one that matters to students everywhere. “To allow the school district to punish her for such relatable frustrations — feelings that teenagers around the nation share everyday online — would dangerously stifle free expression among the very young people whom schools are supposed to teach that value. Who, then, should win the case? Happily, the answer is not as important as one might expect given the gravity of the conflict. The reason is that whoever loses on the technical legal question — whether Tinker applies to off-campus speech — should still enjoy a meaningful strategy for protecting their interests moving forward. The key is for the Supreme Court to say so in any opinion it writes.”
WAIT AND SEE
|Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER has said he will wait for a recommendation from PRESIDENT BIDEN’S bipartisan commission on court reform before saying whether he supports court expansion. Alexander Bolton with The Hill reports on the senator’s response to legislation that was introduced earlier this month with the intention of adding four seats to the Supreme Court. “Senate Republicans have pounced on the idea as a subversion of the Supreme Court’s integrity, even though it’s just at the earliest stages of discussion.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Supreme Court Hangs A Gun On The Wall
The Washington Post“This court didn’t take up this case without a plan to pull the trigger. It’s a safe bet that it is not hearing a Second Amendment dispute for the purpose of limiting gun rights. This means that at the very time the country is reeling from a seemingly ceaseless parade of mass shootings, the court may be about to limit the policy tools available to respond.”
OTHER NEWS
Biden Judicial Pick Secures Endorsements Ahead Of Hearing With Supreme Court Overtones
CNN“Dozens of former Supreme Court clerks, Justice Department officials and law professors are throwing their support behind President Joe Biden’s highest-profile judicial nominee to date as the Senate Judiciary Committee gets set to consider his first batch of selections for the federal courts. The endorsements, in a series of letters obtained by CNN, show a range of support for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s selection for the influential US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The letters of support come as the hearing is being viewed by some on Capitol Hill as a window past Jackson’s current nomination toward a possible Supreme Court nod in the future.”