Pennsylvania teen wins free speech case

A high school violated a student’s First Amendment rights when it punished her for a profanity-laden Snapchat post, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday. The justices voted 8-1 in favor of Brandi Levy, whom Mahanoy Area High School in Pennsylvania suspended from cheerleading in 2017 over her post featuring a middle finger and several obscenities that she sent to roughly 250 people.

What was the court’s reasoning? Delivering the majority opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said the punishment was too severe for an off-campus incident. But the opinion did not say schools could never discipline students for off-campus speech. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter, writing that school officials have had the freedom to discipline students for on- or off-campus speech for years and the majority opinion failed to address why that should change.

Dig deeper: Read Steve West’s reporting on a Christian student’s free speech court battle.