We The People

After a high school student with initials B.L. posted a snap on the social media app Snapchat complaining about sports and school, she was suspended from the cheerleading team. She sued the school for violating her First Amendment rights and appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court; the court heard arguments in the case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., this week, which could become the court’s first major ruling on student speech in decades. On this week’s episode, we recap the oral argument in the case, as our guests explain the arguments on both sides. Host Jeffrey Rosen was joined by Will Creeley, Legal Director at Foundation for Individual Rights (FIRE) who authored an amicus brief on behalf of B.L., and Francisco Negrón, Chief Legal Officer at the National School Boards Association who joined a brief on behalf of the school district. They discuss how the court might apply the leading precedent, Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)—in which the court famously wrote that students “do not shed their constitutiona