Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.

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Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 28, 2021 Decided June 23, 2021
Full case name	Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., A Minor, By And Through Her Father Lawrence Levy And Her Mother Betty Lou Levy
Docket no.	20-255
Citations	594 U.S. ___ (more)
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Preliminary injunction granted to plaintiff, B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District, 289 F. Supp. 3d 607 (M.D. Pa., 2017) Summary judgment granted in favor of plaintiff, B.L. v. Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist., 376 F. Supp. 3d 429 (M.D. Pa. 2019) Affirmed, 964 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2020) Cert. granted, No. 20-255, 2021 WL 77251 (U.S. Jan. 8, 2021)
Questions presented
Whether Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), which holds that public school officials may regulate speech that would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school, applies to student speech that occurs off campus.
Holding
While public schools may have a special interest in regulating some off-campus student speech, the special interests offered by the school are not sufficient to overcome B. L.’s interest in free expression in this case. Third Circuit affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch Brett Kavanaugh · Amy Coney Barrett
Case opinions
Majority	Breyer, joined by Roberts, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
Concurrence	Alito, joined by Gorsuch
Dissent	Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., 594 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the ability of schools to regulate student speech made off-campus, including speech made on social media. The case challenged past interpretations of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District and Bethel School District v. Fraser (previous Supreme Court decisions related to student speech which may be disruptive to the educational environment) in light of online communications.

The case centered on Brandi Levy (initially identified as B.L. in pleadings^[a]), a student at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, who posted an angry, profane Snapchat message from an off-campus location after she failed to make the school's varsity cheerleading squad. Though sent to a private circle of friends and deleted later, the message was shown to school staff, and Levy was suspended from cheerleading for one year under the school's policy relating to social media.

The Supreme Court affirmed the Third Circuit's judgment in regards to Levy's case in an 8-1 decision in June 2021, though it did not agree with the Third Circuit's opinion related to off-campus speech relative to Tinker. The Court affirmed that through Tinker, schools may have a valid interest in regulating student speech off-campus that is disruptive, but did not define when this regulation can occur, leaving that issue open for lower courts in future litigation. The Supreme Court ruled specifically for Levy, holding that the school's interests in preventing disruption under Tinker were not sufficient to overcome her First Amendment rights.

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