In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 23, 2021 that a Pennsylvania school district violated a student’s First Amendment rights when it suspended her from the cheerleading squad over a profane weekend Snapchat post. The decision was the Court’s most significant statement on student speech in more than fifty years, and it established that public schools’ authority to regulate off-campus expression is far weaker than their authority on school grounds. Schools can still act against threats, severe targeted harassment, and disruptions of school operations, but general venting by a student on personal time and a personal device is presumptively protected.
The Snapchat Post That Started the Case
On May 25, 2017, fourteen-year-old Brandi Levy failed for the second year in a row to make the Mahanoy Area High School varsity cheerleading squad. That weekend, at a local convenience store, she posted two images to Snapchat. The first showed Levy and a friend with raised middle fingers and the caption, “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” The second complained about being kept on junior varsity while another student advanced. She sent the posts to roughly 250 friends.1Supreme Court of the United States. Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L.
Teammates saw the posts and showed them to the coaches. The school suspended Levy from the junior varsity squad for the coming season, citing team and school conduct rules about disrespectful online content. Her parents sued. The district court ordered her reinstated and awarded one dollar in nominal damages; the Third Circuit affirmed; and the school district took the case to the Supreme Court.2Oyez. Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.
The Court’s Ruling and Reasoning
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority, joined by seven other justices. The Court held that while public schools retain some interest in regulating off-campus speech, that interest is “diminished” and did not justify punishing Levy. On the record, the only disruption the school could point to was a five- to ten-minute discussion in an algebra class over “just a couple of days” and hurt feelings among teammates. That fell well short of the “material and substantial disruption” standard the Court set in Tinker v. Des Moines in 1969, which remains the governing test for student speech.1Supreme Court of the United States. Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L.
Levy was speaking as a private citizen, from a private location, on a personal device, on a weekend. She was frustrated at an institution, not targeting an individual. A school’s interest in teaching good manners, the Court said, does not extend that far.
The majority identified three features of off-campus speech that shrink a school’s authority over it:
- Off campus, students are normally under parental supervision, not the school’s. Schools stand in loco parentis during the school day, but that role “rarely” extends into evenings and weekends.
- If schools could regulate what students say both on campus and off, students would have no space left where they could speak freely. Combining the two would amount to around-the-clock control over expression.
- Public schools have their own stake in protecting unpopular speech. The Court called them “the nurseries of democracy,” where the ability to voice dissent, even crudely, is part of what students are being prepared to do as citizens.1Supreme Court of the United States. Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L.
Justice Alito, joined by Justice Gorsuch, concurred and pushed the point further. Letting schools punish off-campus speech critical of the school, he warned, would hand administrators “the power to regulate the lives of students 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” The fact that digital speech can reach the school community does not give districts a “roving license” to police it.
When Schools Can Still Discipline Off-Campus Speech
The Court did not create an absolute shield. Justice Breyer flagged categories where schools may still act on speech that originates away from campus:
- Serious or severe bullying and harassment aimed at specific individuals in the school community. General complaints about a school, a program, or a teacher do not qualify; the targeting has to be of particular people.
- Threats of violence against students or teachers, which fall outside protected speech regardless of where they originate.
- Breaches of school operations, such as breaking into school computer systems or cheating through digital means.1Supreme Court of the United States. Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L.
The line the Court drew runs between generalized venting and targeted conduct. Levy’s posts were the paradigm of the first. A student who sends repeated threatening messages to a classmate, or who posts a credible threat against a teacher, is on entirely different ground.
Threats After Counterman
For threats in particular, the standard tightened in 2023. In Counterman v. Colorado, the Supreme Court held that the government must show the speaker “consciously disregarded a substantial risk” that their statements would be viewed as threatening violence. A recklessness standard applies. The speaker need not have intended to frighten anyone, but must have been aware the words could reasonably be taken as a threat.3Supreme Court of the United States. Counterman v. Colorado For schools evaluating a student’s off-campus post, that means a bad joke or piece of dark humor is not automatically a punishable threat, even if it unsettles the people who see it.
Cyberbullying Remains Unsettled
The line between protected venting and punishable harassment is the murkiest part of the framework. Alito acknowledged in his concurrence that “serious or severe” bullying is not easy to define with the precision required for a speech regulation. Lower courts have generally treated isolated rude posts differently from sustained campaigns of targeted abuse, but there is no bright-line test. A single insulting comment about a classmate sits in a different place than weeks of coordinated online attacks.
Justice Thomas’s Dissent
Justice Thomas was the lone dissenter. He looked to nineteenth-century precedent, including the 1859 Vermont case Lander v. Seaver, which allowed schools to discipline off-campus speech that had “a direct and immediate tendency to injure the school, to subvert the master’s authority, and to beget disorder and insubordination.” Under that historical test, Thomas concluded, the school would have had authority to discipline Levy because her posts were meant to degrade the cheerleading program in front of other students. He called the majority’s framework “untethered from any textual or historical foundation.”4Supreme Court of the United States. Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L. – Thomas, J., Dissenting No other justice joined him.
What Mahanoy Means for Students and Parents
If a school disciplines your child over something they said online, off campus, and outside school hours, Mahanoy puts the burden on the school. It must show a material and substantial disruption, and a few uncomfortable conversations do not meet that bar. Context does most of the work: where the speech happened, when it happened, whether it named or targeted a specific person, and how severe any resulting disruption actually was.
The financial exposure matters too. When a school violates a student’s constitutional rights, the student can sue under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights Even a nominal award of one dollar, as Levy received, can trigger attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, and in a case that reaches the appellate courts those fees can be substantial.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1988 – Proceedings in Vindication of Civil Rights Compensatory damages are also available if the student can show real harm from the punishment, such as academic setbacks or documented emotional injury.
There is also a separate due-process floor. Under Goss v. Lopez, even a suspension of ten days or fewer requires notice of the charges and a chance for the student to respond before the suspension begins, with limited exceptions for immediate safety concerns.7Library of Congress. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 Longer suspensions and expulsions call for more formal proceedings. A punishment imposed without those procedures can be challenged on due-process grounds even where the First Amendment analysis is close.
The practical rule after Mahanoy is straightforward. A student venting about school, a coach, or a program from home on a weekend is on strong constitutional footing. A student who sends targeted, threatening, or severely harassing messages to specific classmates has far less protection, even when the messages come from a personal device on personal time. Platform and profanity are not what decides the case. The target and the disruption are.