Abstract
The Court has determined over time that students do not abdicate their constitutional rights because they enter a public school. The Court, over its history, has ensured that students retain most of their constitutional rights unless a substantially or materially disruptive activity occurs that would disrupt the normal education process. Freedom of speech encompasses a variety of topics such as politics, religion, and criticism attacking the school among many others. School officials must be savvy to navigate what is protected speech and what might be considered speech that substantially and materially disrupts the school. A couple of cases addressed the limitations of speech off-campus during the Roberts Court term. In a case where a student unfurled a banner on a field trip to display a pro-drug message, the Court determined that the school could discipline the student. But in another speech situation, a female student was upset with some things that happened in relation to her being cut from the sports teams and sent a disparaging text message to many people. The school administration acted and suspended her. The Court ruled against the school saying that it did not disrupt the educational environment and the student was reinstated immediately. However, the Court did reinforce that school officials have a duty to monitor these types of communications and may discipline students when it meets the substantial and material disruption standard. The Roberts Court also heard a case regarding the strip search of a female student for contraband. The Court decided that the student’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated declaring that the search was not justified nor was the scope of intrusion reasonably related to the circumstances.
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
~George Orwell, Part of a preface not included in Animal Farm
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Notes
- 1.
393 U.S. 503 (1969).
- 2.
Id. at 511.
- 3.
Renee L. Severance, Cyberbullying, Cyber-Harassment, and the Conflict Between Schools, the First Amendment, 2003 Wis. L. R. 1213 (2003).
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Id. at 1214. The author provides an analysis of the history of social media and the devices that have been created over the years supporting social media.
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Jesulon S.R. Gibbs, Law and Society: Recent Scholarship 42 (Melvin I. Urofsky ed., 1st ed., 2010).
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Severance, supra note 3, at 1213, 1215.
- 7.
Morse v. Frederick, 127 S. Ct. 2623 (2007).
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Id.
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Mark W. Cordes, Making Sense of High School Speech After Morse v. Frederick, 17 William and Mary Bill of Rights J. 657, 670 (2009).
- 10.
Id. (emphasis added).
- 11.
Morse, 127 S. Ct. at 2624 (majority opinion).
- 12.
Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 469 U.S. 325 (1985).
- 13.
Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
- 14.
Morse, 127 S. Ct. at 2628 (quoting Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 661 (1995)).
- 15.
Id. at 2629 (quoting Tinker, 393 U.S. at 506, 508, 509).
- 16.
Id. at 2624–2625 (majority opinion).
- 17.
Id. at 2625.
- 18.
Cordes, supra note 9 at 2009.
- 19.
Morse, 127 S. Ct. at 2629–36 (Thomas, J., concurring).
- 20.
Id. at 2636 (Alito, J., concurring).
- 21.
Id. at 2637–8.
- 22.
Id. at 2638 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
- 23.
Id. at 2639.
- 24.
Id. at 2644–45 (Stevens, J., concurring).
- 25.
Id. at 2645-46.
- 26.
Id. at 2646.
- 27.
Id. at 2650.
- 28.
Id. at 2647–48.
- 29.
141 S. Ct. 2038 (2021).
- 30.
Id. at 2040 (majority opinion).
- 31.
Id. at 2046 (majority opinion).
- 32.
Id.
- 33.
Id.
- 34.
Id. at 2045 (majority opinion).
- 35.
Id. at 2057 (Alito, J., concurring).
- 36.
Id. at 2059 (Thomas, J., dissenting).
- 37.
A reasonable ground to suspect that a person has committed or is committing a crime, which amounts to more than a bare suspicion but less than evidence that would justify a conviction.
- 38.
Any reasonable person would suspect that a crime was in the process of being committed, had been committed, or was going to be committed very soon.
- 39.
T.L.O. v. New Jersey, 469 U.S. 325, 341 (1971).
- 40.
Id. at 342.
- 41.
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- 42.
Id. at 220.
- 43.
Id at 221–22.
- 44.
129 S. Ct. 2633 (2009).
- 45.
Id. at 2641 (majority opinion).
- 46.
Id.
- 47.
Id. at 2642–43 (majority opinion).
- 48.
Id. at 2641–42 (majority opinion).
- 49.
Id. at 2642 (majority opinion).
- 50.
Id. at 2644 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
- 51.
Id. at 2646 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
- 52.
Id. at 2646 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
- 53.
Dennis D. Parker, Discipline in Schools After Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding, 54 N.Y.L. R. 1023 (2009/2010).
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Geier, B.A. (2023). Student Rights: Protecting Against Material Disruption in School or Limiting Free Speech?. In: The Roberts Court and Public Schools. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46008-1_5
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