School district tries to restrict off-campus speech of students, and now court intervenes
A school district trying to restrict the speech of students off-campus has been put on a leash.
It is the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled the Livingston Manor Central School District in New York was off base when it suspended a student for a meme posted on social media while the student was off the school grounds.
According to a report at the Center Square, the decision benefits Case Leroy.
He had been suspended for a post that mocked the 2020 death of George Floyd, a death that triggered Black Lives Matter riots across dozens of cities, leaving behind billions of dollars in damages.
According to the report, Leroy “posed with another student’s knee on his neck,” and said in the caption “Cops got another.”
His intolerant community responded with backlash online, protests at his school, and community meetings.
However, the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and other First Amendment groups sued the school and explained punishment for his speech violated the First Amendment rights.
A trial court judge sided with the school, but the appeals judges reversed.
“We conclude that Leroy’s off-campus speech fell outside the bounds of the school’s regulatory authority. We cannot accept the contention that in today’s world, a social media post made off-campus is equivalent to speech on campus,” said Circuit Judge Barrington Parker.
Judge Myrna Perez agreed, but did point out that there are limits on free speech.
What would be required for school control would be for some situation to make students “feel unsafe” or deprive them of “the ability to learn,” she said.
Adam Schulman, Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute’s senior attorney, said the appellate court’s ruling “recognized the limits on American public schools’ authority to police students’ speech outside of school hours or off campus. As the court put it, learning to engage in civil discourse with those with whom we disagree really is ‘an essential feature’ of student education.”