Lol, not on anything involving money
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Need to come up with Nationals tickets if you want to play in this league.
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Oh Crapâs 
Unless Iâm misinterpreting, this means that a Coach of a team canât suspend or kick off the team an athlete who posts hate speech on social media? If so, thatâs a pretty awful precedent to set. Participation in sports and other extracurricular activities is a privilege and participation should be held to certain standards. Social media is how this generation communicates to a larger extent than olds understand, so the argument that itâs not on school grounds is an absurdist view to a certain extent.
This ruling is basically the current conservative anti-cancel culture view that misinterprets free speech to mean that you can say whatever you want without any repercussions for it.
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I feel crazy, but Iâm reading Thomasâ dissent and I think heâs 100% right in this case. This appears to be a terrible decision. How the hell is Clarence Thomas the only member of scotus that understands how social media works?
âWe do not believe the special characteristics that give schools additional license to regulate student speech always disappear when a school regulates speech that takes place off campus,â Breyer wrote. âThe schoolâs regulatory interests remain significant in some off-campus circumstances.â
Breyer cited cyberbullying, threats to teachers or students and online cheating as examples of when schools may be able to crack down.
But Breyer said the specifics of those circumstances would need to be sorted out in future cases.
âWe hesitate to determine precisely which of many school-related off-campus activities belong on such a list,â Breyer wrote. âThus, we do not now set forth a broad, highly general First Amendment rule stating just what counts as âoff campusâ speech and whether or how ordinary First Amendment standards must give way off campus to a schoolâs special need to prevent, e.g., substantial disruption of learning-related activities.â
Seems like hate speech could pretty easily be included with the bolded.
He doesnât and heâs not right obviously. The majority ruling is fine. Schools canât and shouldnât be punishing vulgarity off campus. It sure as hell shouldnât be punishing off campus vulgarity criticizing the school itself. The ruling also leaves plenty of room for schools to punish dangerous speech such as bullying.
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The schoolâs argument was that an f-bomb not directed at anyone in particular was somehow disruptive. Itâs absurd and they should be fined for being annoying busybodies.
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Fucking Thomas, damn you for getting me to read his opinion.
Well back in 1819 any speech by a student that held the masters authority in contempt could be punished => we must allow this school to punish this girl because saying âfuck cheerâ is contemptuous of the cheer coaches authority.
People with these opinions have likely never had any involvement with athletics at any high level. You cannot be a positive contributing member of a team and post this type of stuff blasting your team and school on social media. Almost any coach wouldâve made the decision to suspend someone for this. And if I needed to, I could find countless examples of members of teams being suspended or removed from a team because of social media posts.
Take it out of that realm and letâs say a student posts vulgar/negative messages against the school and a teacher or administrator of a school on social media every day. This ruling says the school can no longer do anything to discipline this behavior. Even though this obviously impacts the school and that teacher/administrator directly. The off campus ruling is especially hilarious at it seems to believe that social media canât be sent or received while on campus.
Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences of speech.
So uh yeah. A major component of this ruling was that she made the post outside of school outside of school hours. If the post is time stamped 0930 on Tuesday morning on a day she wasnât absent it is pretty obvious she said this at school. Also, a publicly run and funded school has long been ruled a state institution. The 1st amendment guarantee to protest the government and its many apparatuses is paramount, schools are wrapped into that.
So the school punishes a student for being critical of that school is a government institution punishing a person who is involuntary a member of that institution for being critical of it.
To use a real world example:
During the George Floyd protests a D1 college athlete was found to have posted messages on Snapchat calling protesters the N word. When these were brought to the attention of the coach of that team, that athlete was removed from the team. This scotus decision labels that action as unconstitutional. This was at a public university.
I mean, it doesnât do that for one. It explicitly says schools can punish some speech outside of school. It doesnât say where that line is. It simply says âfuck school, fuck cheerâ doesnât cross it. I also donât see where this is guaranteed to apply at university.
Another example from just a few years ago is the SAE fraternity at the University of Oklahoma, and their recorded use of a racist song on some bus ride. After that video surfaced, two of the students were expelled from the university. I think that was a borderline case - the studentsâ first amendment rights were countered by the universityâs obligation to maintain an environment free of racial discrimination.
This cheerleader case seems more straightforward - the student has the same first amendment rights (certainly outside of school), and thereâs no balancing factor like direct threats or discrimination. I havenât read the opinion yet, but this seems like a pretty straightforward outcome.
So hear me out, because as I said early on Iâd be glad for my interpretation to be wrong.
Letâs say Coach Smith is the football coach at a public high school. One of the football athletes sends something out on social media saying fuck Coach Smith, fuck football, fuck x public high school.
Coach Smith disciplining this athlete is unconstitutional now correct?
Are kids allowed to tell their friends that math class is boring or is that also disruptive and threatening?
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5-4 podcast on the bong hits for jesus case talks about how scotus was never actually consistent on these cases.
I think if the school had tried to remove her from school, Iâd agree with the majority here. Suspending her from an extracurricular activity, especially considering itâs the one sheâs snapping negatively about, doesnât infringe on her first amendment rights.
Maybe. Again this case doesnât set the line. Specifically calling out coach Smith may cross that line. âFuck school, fuck footballâ clearly doesnât. Personally I donât give a fuck about coach smith and if your explicit example is constitutionally protected speech in some case down the road im fine with that. This ruling, however, doesnât say that it is explicitly protected.
This is where I come closest to agreeing with you - I think thereâs a substantial difference between expelling someone from school and removing them from an extracurricular activity. I just skimmed the opinion and I didnât notice any part of it recognizing that distinction.
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