holding the school may discipline a high school student for off-campus speech on his social media page that was directed intentionally at the school community and understood to be threatening, harassing, and intimidating without violating the student’s First Amendment rights
How later courts described this case
- holding the school may discipline a high school student for off-campus speech on his social media page that was directed intentionally at the school community and understood to be threatening, harassing, and intimidating without violating the student’s First Amendment rights
- holding that a school can address speech “intentionally direct[ed] at the school community . . . , even when such speech originated, and was disseminated, off-campus without the use of school resources”
- observing that the Tinker standard may be satisfied “either by showing a disruption has occurred, or by showing ‘demonstrable factors that would give rise to any reasonable forecast by the school administration of ‘substantial and material’ disruption” (emphasis omitted) (quoting Shanley v. Ne. Indep. Sch. Dist., 462 F.2d 960, 974 (5th Cir. 1972))
- observing that “the First Amendment does not, for example, allow a public school to punish a student for ‘writ[ing] a blog entry defending gay marriage’ from his home computer, even if the blog entry causes a substantial disruption at the school” (citing Snyder, 650 F.3d at 939 (Smith, J., concurring))
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
HAYNES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I respectfully dissent from the portion of the majority opinion affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the School Board on Bell’s claim. 1 I conclude that the majority opinion greatly and unnecessarily expands Tinker to the' detriment of Bell’s First Amendment rights. I would reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the School Board and remand for further proceedings on those matters for substantially the same reasons set forth in Section III of the original panel majority opinion. See Bell, 774 F.3d at 290-303.
. Credibility and inferences matter here, so I would not reverse the denial of Bell’s summary judgment motion.