The School Board expelled two students, Epple and Chen, after their violent and racist Instagram posts about classmates circulated around their high school. The students challenged the school board’s ability to discipline...more
A recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision held that school officials did not violate students’ First Amendment rights when disciplining them for off-campus social media posts that amounted to severe harassment...more
For better or for worse, social media has become an important and all-consuming part of everyone’s lives, including your employees. Information can be shared instantly, with the ability to reach a wide audience in a short...more
Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L. by and through Levy, 141 S. Ct. 2038 (2021). The United States Supreme Court holds that while schools can sometimes regulate student speech that takes place off-campus, the school district...more
The September 1, 2020 Trending Law Blog post discussed how the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 964 F.3d 170 (2020), upheld a public school student’s First...more
On April 28th, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., a student free speech case that every public school district in the country needs to be watching...more
In 1969, the Supreme Court recognized both that students do not surrender their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gates, but that schools do have the right to discipline students for speech that could cause...more
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in its first case ever to address the discipline of students for speech occurring off-campus, on their own time, and online. ...more