192 Student School Board Members From Across the Country File Amicus Brief Urging the Supreme Court to Protect Students’ Rights to Free Speech Off Campus

March 31, 2021

Nearly 200 current and former student members of local school boards and state boards of education from 28 States and territories have joined in an amicus brief filed today by Deutsch Hunt PLLC in the Supreme Court in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (No. 20-255).  The brief marks the first time student school board members have ever organized together on a nationwide, grassroots scale. Supporting the ACLU and a student who was punished by her school for an off-campus social media post, the brief argues that the First Amendment prohibits public school punishment of non-harassing, non-violent student speech that occurs off campus, including on social media.

Both as representatives to school boards that shape school policies, and as students who must abide by those policies, amici’s experience reflects a broad range of school settings across the country, from large urban districts to small rural ones. Hailing from diverse corners of America—spanning the coasts and every region in between and beyond—they joined together to file this brief because the case before the Supreme Court poses grave risks not only to students’ free speech rights, but also to school boards’ ability to learn of and respond to problems in their districts.

The case involves a dispute about whether a school can punish a student for a social media post she made on the weekend and off campus, related to the cheer team. Amici have come together to emphasize that the stakes are much higher than this one strident post. The school district here claims an expansive and unprecedented authority to regulate off-campus speech that would subject a great deal of core political speech to policing from school administrations, and chill students from critiquing the school or freely using their voices to advocate for change. Student school board members depend upon robust and open channels of communication with other students to help them identify and address issues of concern to the school community. If fear of punishment stifles student speech, student school board members cannot perform that function, and school governance will suffer.

Amici agree with both parties to the case that school districts must be able to punish harassment and bullying, an issue that many student school board members have long fought hard to address. But schools have plenty of tools to combat harassment that do not subject vast swaths of protected speech to the chilling effect of government scrutiny—unlike the sweeping speech-suppression authority sought by the school district here. Outside of school, students, no less than adults, deserve the breathing space the First Amendment provides to develop and exercise their voices on matters great and small, without fear of government sanction.

Hyland Hunt is lead counsel for the brief.