The Supreme Court ruled in favor, by a vote of 8-1, for a former high school cheerleader who argued that her punishment at her public school for posting a profanity-ridden Snapchat message was in violation of the First Amendment.
The case, Mahanoy Area High School v. B.L. began in 2017. Brandi Levy, who was 14 years old at the time, sent Snapchats degrading her Pennsylvania high school after she auditioned for the school’s varsity cheerleading squad and was cut. Around the same time, she tried out for a specific position on the school’s softball team and was also denied. However, she was offered a spot on the school’s junior varsity cheerleading team.
Despite being offered a spot on the JV squad, Levy was riddled with disappointment. Like many teenagers, Levy took to social media to make it known.
In one photo, Levy reportedly had her middle finger raised with the caption: “F--k school f--k softball f--k cheer f--k everything,” as described in the Supreme Court documents.
In the second photo, Levy wrote “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?” according to the Supreme Court documents. This message was pointed at the fact that another entering freshman had earned a spot on the varsity team.
The photos, which were posted for 24 hours, were viewed by about 250 people in that time span. However, some viewers took screenshots of the posts, which were circulated. That’s when coaches and school officials at Mahanoy Area High School were made aware of the online outburst.
Since she was now a member of the junior varsity cheerleading squad, she was suspended for the season. Levy subsequently apologized to school officials in hopes to end her suspension to no avail. Levy and her parents then filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court.
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Levy, who is now a freshman at Bloomsburg University, started at the lower courts where she argued that her suspension from the cheerleading team violated the First Amendment. Though Levy’s Snapchats violated school and team rules, they were not posted on school grounds. When the lower courts agreed, her case escalated to the Supreme Court.
“Her posts appeared outside of school hours from a location outside the school. She did not identify the school in her posts or target any member of the school community with vulgar or abusive language. B.L. also transmitted her speech through a personal cellphone, to an audience consisting of her private circle of Snapchat friends,” said Justice Stephen Breyer, who penned the majority opinion on the case. “It might be tempting to dismiss B. L.’s words as unworthy of the robust First Amendment protections discussed herein. But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary.”
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