WASHINGTON- The United States Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the publication of an offensive message on a social network by a teenage student was protected by the rules of freedom of expression.
Eight of the nine magistrates of the high court considered that the high school had no justification to sanction the student Brandy Levy for a message on Snapchat posted outside the school boundaries.
However, the ruling underlines that study centers can sanction certain speeches made outside their walls, for example in cases of harassment or threats, a key nuance in the era of social networks.
“Sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous to preserve the necessary,” the court wrote.
Levy was suspended as a cheerleader for a year after posting the image of her middle finger and swearing on a Saturday in 2017, when she was 14 years old, while she was out of her high school in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania.
“Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer up everything,” he had written in the post.
“I ran for the varsity cheerleading team but didn’t make it, so I was pretty upset,” Levy told the ACLU, the powerful civil rights association that represented her in court.
The case may sound frivolous, but it touches on the key issue of youth freedom of expression and the right to fight online bullying.
“The high school’s interest in teaching good manners is not enough, in this case, to outweigh the interest in free speech,” the Supreme Court said.
The public schools are “nurseries of democracy” and it is necessary to encourage the exchange of ideas, even the “unpopular”, according to the opinion.
In 1969, the Supreme Court authorized students to wear black armbands in opposition to the Vietnam War, but clarified that disruptive speech could be punished.
However, in Levy’s case, the high court found no evidence of a “substantial disturbance” of school activity sufficient to limit expression.
Levy welcomed the ruling and felt that his school had gone too far. “I was frustrated, I was 14 years old and I expressed my frustration like teenagers do today,” she said in a statement.
“I never imagined that a simple snap would become a Supreme Court case, but I am proud that my family and I stood up for the rights of millions of public school students,” she added.
