3 years ago

114

Supreme Court Issues Parental Rights Ruling in Free Speech Case

Rough Transcript: Last week the United States Supreme Court issued a significant parental rights ruling in the case of Mahanoy v. B. L. Also called the “the vulgar cheerleader case,” Mahanoy is primarily a First Amendment free speech case. It explores whether a public school can discipline a student for vulgar speech made outside the school grounds on a private social media account on the student’s own time. Yet, there is also the question of whether or not the school had any authority to oversee B. L.’s language or actions at the time of her rant, and therefore any authority to discipline her for it. Should it not be her parents, rather than her school, who decide how she is to be disciplined for inappropriate speech on private time? For that matter, shouldn’t it be the parents and not the school who decide what speech is or is not appropriate? Background story is this: Several years ago, B. L. was a freshman at Mahanoy Area High School in Pennsylvania. When she learned she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading team, she wasn’t pleased. While at the local Cocoa Hut, she took a picture with a friend with their middle fingers raised, and posted it to her Snapchat account with vulgar captions: “F— school… softball… cheer… everything.” The picture went out to her friends list of about 250 and was visible for 24 hours before disappearing from the site. But another student took a screen shot of the offending post and brought it to the attention of school personnel, who suspended B. L. from cheer for the year. Now, it may be that the discipline given to her was perfectly reasonable. As a parent, I could see myself taking that privilege from my own daughter to teach her that such outbursts, especially in a public forum, have consequences. But the issue was not whether the punishment fit, but rather who was responsible to decide what the punishment should be: the school, or the parents.
Now related to the "Answering the Parental Rights Question" section in this article it continues...
In writing the opinion of the Court, Justice Breyer wrote the following:
“First, we consider the school’s interest in teaching good manners and possibly punishing the use of vulgar language aimed at the school community. The strength of this anti-vulgarity interest is weakened considerably by the fact that B. L. spoke outside the school on her own time. B. L. spoke under circumstances where the school did not stand in loco parentis (in place of the parent). And there is no reason to believe B. L.’s parents had delegated to school officials their own control of B. L.’s behavior at the Cocoa Hut. Justices Alito and Gorsuch, also discussed the extent of the in loco parentis (in place of the parent) doctrine. They concluded, “While the decision to enroll a student in a public school may be regarded as conferring the authority to regulate some off-premises speech, enrollment cannot be treated as a complete transfer of parental authority over a student’s speech. In our society, parents, not the State, have the primary authority and duty to raise, educate, and form the character of their children. Parents do not implicitly relinquish all that authority when they send their children to a public school.” Justice Thomas was the only one who dissented (disagreed)
This is by no means an earth-shattering parental rights case—but only because of the way it was decided. It will not bring radical change to the level of respect parents receive from schools, child welfare investigators, judges, or other state actors. But had it gone the other way, the results would have been disastrous. Public schools would have had the power to police what children say or do, on school grounds or off, during school time or free time, every hour of every day. The role of the parent would have been reduced to that of a caretaker, with no authority in how their own children are raised. Mahanoy v. B. L. is just such a victory, and we should celebrate it accordingly! Will this be a protected victory? We shall see...

https://parentalrightsfoundation.org/supreme-court-issues-parental-rights-ruling-in-free-speech-case/

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