Hi, I hope you guys are having a good break and I hope you're having a very safe New Year's. We're getting ready to finish up the semester. I wanted to send this message out to you because, well, I'm a nerd.
I love government stuff, case law, all that stuff, and I wanted to share with you something that is actually getting a lot of buzz around the internet. There is a Supreme Court case that is going to be, well, at least oral arguments are going to be heard probably in January or maybe early February. It's looking like we don't know where it's going to be on the calendar yet. But this case has the potential of being a landmark Supreme Court case involving the First Amendment and public schools, in particular high school.
And. The case before the Supreme Court is called Mahanoy Area School District v. BL. BL is an acronym for a young lady's name, a freshman in high school at Mahanoy Area High School, which is in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. We don't know her name because she is a minor, and so there is a bit of anonymity here.
This is very similar to New Jersey versus TLO. T.L.O. was a young lady in New Jersey at Piscataway High School in the same situation. Although this is very different, and this is probably the biggest First Amendment case involving public schools since Morris v. Frederick in 2007, which we actually saw in my classroom live when it happened in 2002. This guy in Juneau, Alaska, made this big poster that said, Bong hits for Jesus on it, and it was on international television as the Olympic torch was, you know, being running by on the streets of Juneau, Alaska, and the kid got kicked out of school.
And I'll let you read about it, and if you look below, I'll put a link to Morris v. Frederick, the Supreme Court decision on that First Amendment case below. But I want to talk about this case here, Mahanoy Area School District. So just to give you a little background of what has happened or what did happen. First of all, it happened three years or almost four years ago now.
It happened in 2017. And that's kind of normal for such a long time before it actually makes it to the Supreme Court. Because you've got to go through all the appeals process and whatnot. And so here's kind of the gist of what happened with this story.
A young lady by the name of BL, she's a freshman in high school there, she is trying out for the varsity cheerleading squad and she's very excited about it. She thinks she's going to make it and then when the big day comes she found out she didn't make the varsity squad and apparently she was pretty upset. So on the weekend, it was actually on a Saturday, she went home and she got on Snapchat. Now I'm an old man, I don't quite understand Snapchat.
you guys do. What I do know from Snapchat is that you can text, you can send pictures and little videos, and once the recipient receives it, it kind of disappears after that, after a short period of time. She made a Snapchat at her home on a Saturday, not in school.
It was sent to about 250 of her friends, and well, I'm not going to repeat the verbiage that was said in the Snapchat other than... What she did do was she flashed the middle finger and she said some profane words toward four things. Number one, she said some profane things toward her school, toward the softball team, toward the cheerleading squad. And the last one was to everything. She pretty much used a profane word about everything in the world.
So she's pretty upset she didn't make the cheerleading squad. Well, as these things happen, somebody, one of her friends, was able to screenshot the Snapchat and then gave it to his mom. His mom ends up being a teacher. They brought it to the school. And guess what?
The cheerleading coach got to see it. And the cheerleading coach was not too happy about it. In fact, the cheerleading coach said that this violated team rules, school rules.
And so she made a decision to kick her off the cheerleading squad for the remainder of the school year. And she was supported by administration in her decision because, according to the coach, this was not representative. She was not being a good representative of the team or of the school by representing herself this way. Now, this should be the end of the case, but it's not.
Basically, what happened is this young lady, with the help of her parents, Lawrence and Betty Lou Levy, we know their last name because it's in the court documents, they sued. They went to federal court right here, the Middle District Federal Court of Pennsylvania. By the way, Mahanoy City is located somewhere around here. I've never been there before.
I've been close to it. I drove to Stratton once when I was in high school, so I've probably been by it. It's beautiful in the mountains and stuff.
Anyway, she takes it to court, and her argument is that the school has no right to punish her for exercising her constitutional right to the freedom of speech. She argued that it was not done in school. It was not done on a school computer. It was done in her home.
It was sent to her friends. It was not sent to the school. And the school has no right to punish her by taking away the extracurricular activity for exercising a right that is instilled in the First Amendment of the Constitution.
She lost. She lost the case at federal district court. So what did she do?
She and her family appealed. And they went to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which is located here in this building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Third Circuit represents all cases out of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. And she went there again to argue her case.
Now, her attorneys in this case, she was being represented by an organization called the American Civil Liberties Union or the ACLU. And, well... And, you know, I'm not going to give you my opinion about this case other than two things.
Number one, I'm excited. I'm excited about this case because this has the potential of being a huge landmark First Amendment court case about public school. The second thing I'll tell you is I am surprised at the verdict here by the Court of Appeals because the Court of Appeals. ruled in her favor.
She won. According to the Third Circuit, her First Amendment rights were violated by the school, and the school did not have the right to punish her for doing that on Snapchat. So what happened? Well, her high school, her school district, has now appealed this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it is going to be heard in 2021. We just don't have the exact time and date yet.
that's going to be coming out soon. So I'm really excited about this because I have a feeling. I've been teaching for 27 years, and I have a feeling. I've been wrong before.
I've said some things are going to be a landmark case, and they end up, you know, fizzling out. But this one, I really have a good feeling about because I've been reading a lot about it. I've been watching a lot of experts talk about the ramifications of this.
And either way, whoever wins this case, if the young lady wins this case. or if the school district wins this case, it will be a landmark decision. It will affect you and every kid in public school from now on.
Because if you remember the principle of stare decisis, that we respect court decisions, this will be a court decision that will be respected for many, many years to come. And so I'm very interested to see what's going to happen with this. I honestly, I'm going to tell you right now, I don't know what's going to happen.
I can guess, but I'm not going to give you my guess. So I want to give something to all of you. I want to give you all an opportunity to do something because this is a moment in American history. This is a moment in judicial history. And it could affect you and your lives and the lives of your children and your brothers and sisters and everybody who's in public school.
Below. There is a link to a Google form. The Google form is a very short survey and you can only take this survey if you're in the Lee Summit R7 school district, so you have to take it on your Chromebook.
I will not be sharing this with anyone, okay, except you because once you have filled out the survey, it will kick back your answers, okay? And I'm just going to tell you right now what it's going to ask you. It's going to ask you this question. Number one, What do you want to happen in this case? Who do you want to win?
Do you think the school should win, or do you think BL should win? And the second question is, now who do you think will win? Now, you might be one in the same, or you might have, well, I think I want them to win, but I think the other is going to win. And that's possible too, okay?
And so you can answer it either way. The Google form is going to collect your emails, and I'm going to hang on to them. I'm going to hang on to your answers. Like I said, I'm not sharing them with anybody but you. But when it's all said and done, and when this court case comes out, it might not be decided by the Supreme Court until June.
I will email all of you. I will send you all back your responses from back in January of 2021. And we're going to see if you predicted what the Supreme Court was going to do. I mean, this is kind of a neat opportunity to do this.
And so it's not something that's required. But if you're interested in doing that, click the link below. Also below is a link to Morris v. Frederick, like I said, the last big landmark case about First Amendment. And I've also got a link down there to my landmark Supreme Court case website. I'm up to 617 summary cases online, and it is expanding.
And this case is going to end up being a part of that collection for other students to learn about in the future. So I'm excited. I have a feeling I know what's going to happen, but I'm not going to share that because I don't want to influence you in any way.
I encourage you to read more about it. I encourage you to get online and read more about this case. If you just go up here to the top and type that in and then type maybe Supreme Court after it, it's going to take you to a lot of things on YouTube, a lot of articles, newspaper articles, things like that about it. It's exciting, and I hope you enjoy it.
And I look forward to seeing you all in the upcoming remainder of the semester. And be safe and take care and watch the news.