Regulation Of Student (and Cheerleader) Speech—“F—k School”? SCOTUS Mahanoy Area School District V. B.L.

In 1965, five students in Des Moines, Iowa passed through their schoolhouse gates wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War and supporting a proposed “Christmas Truce”. Those students, four of whom shared the surname “Tinker,” set off a constitutional debate regarding the regulation of student speech by school administrators. Subsequent cases mapped the contours of permissible regulation of student speech in schools, but new questions have arisen in the digital age regarding schools’ ability to regulate student speech that occurs off-campus. In June 2021, the United States Supreme Court addressed these new questions in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. For this webinar, three prominent experts will explore the history of student speech, the specifics of the Mahanoy case, and the practical effects this new precedent will have on school practices in New York.