We’d discussed the the “F*** cheer” incident when it was argued at SCOTUS. By now many of you know the cheerleader won. The school and school board did violate her 1st amendment rights when they kicked her off the cheersquad for her Snapchat outburts.
On Volokh a commenter wondered
am curious why her private comments to a privately selected cadre of friends in a private digital medium recieved the ire of the school for being disruptive when but for the actions of another person who brought this content and then shared it themselves with others at school it would not have been a school issue.
Why isn’t this second person the one having to defend themsleves in court (where I would support them being victorious just as B.L. was)? It was their speech… essentially quoting B.L., that would be the source of on campus disruption. Had they not quoted it/shared it… the whole thing would have likely stayed a totally private affair.
When I read that I recalled that the ‘second person’ in question was the cheer coach’s daughter. So I was motivated to hunt more down. It’s not easy to find likely because it was a legally relevant question. I did find this at wikipedia:
The following weekend, B.L. and a friend commiserated about the apparent unfairness of this at the Cocoa Hut, a convenience store in downtown Mahanoy City where students often socialized. Using B.L.’s smartphone, the two took a selfie with middle fingers raised and posted it to her Snapchat story with the text “fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything”.[6][7][8] A followup Snap expressed their frustration about being kept on the JV squad while the incoming freshman girl made varsity; they believed they were being treated unfairly. B.L. sent the two Snaps to a group of 250 friends, many of whom were fellow students, some of them cheerleaders themselves.[4]
The Snap itself self-deleted in a short period of time, but one of her teammates took a screenshot.[6] One of those teammates was the daughter of one of the coaches, who had herself been suspended from cheering at a few games after she had posted disparaging remarks online about another school’s cheerleading squad’s uniforms.[9] By the time school resumed for the following week, the screenshot had been widely shared among students, especially the cheerleaders. Some who had seen it came to the cheerleading coaches “visibly upset” by the Snap[10] over the next few days.[4] At the end of the week one of the coaches pulled B.L. out of class to inform her that she was suspended from cheerleading for the next year as a result of her Snap.[3] B.L.’s parents appealed the suspension to the school board, which upheld it.[7
So reading that, I can’t help wonder two more things:
- Just how authoritarian do the Mahony cheer coaches think they have a right to be? Reading the case, you’d think it was the profanity that took things over the top and resulted in the suspension. But we see the cheer coaches deemed merely criticizing another teams uniforms online sufficient cause to kick a kid off the cheer squad!
- In the school’s case to the court, they related that some cheerleaders were “upset” about the Snapchat post. This “disruption” springing from the speech was supposedly the justification for going all medieval on Brandi the cheerleader.But I haven’t found details relating what precisely these cheerleaders were “visibly upset” about. Was it Brandi Levy’s use of profanity? (i.e. Her speech.) Or was it a perception that whatever rule existed it should be applied evenly? Was the coach’s daughter possibly upset that she had gotten kicked off for internet speech but Brandi was going to get away with it? That would be a very human reaction and even more typical of 14 year old cheerleaders. If the latter, then Brandi’s speech itself wasn’t the source of any upset. It was the school’s uneven handling of all internet speech!
Anyway, I can’t help but think it looks like the school’s policies were clearly aimed at controlling even non-vulgar fairly bland criticisms of sartorial choices of others. Of course, in court the school didn’t say they want to control every student utterance everywhere. They presented themselves as wanting to control things like bullying, cheating, harassment or true threats. But it’s pretty clear this particular school was in the habit of trying to control even entirely innocuous speech and did so.
I hate to think how many schools would have thought it fine to control every aspect of student speech every where if this school had won! (And I’m also now curious about the other school’s cheer uniforms. Were they ugly? Slutty? Dowdy? Enquiring bloggers want to know.)
Comment note: I’ve got other open threads. Let’s stick to the cheerleader and free speech here. Or, if you can find them the other schools uniforms!
In boy sports there is often a core group of players who enforce discipline on team miscreants. [often harshly) In this case the girls ran tattling to the coach. Do girl sports not have a code that the players self enforce? Or, is this case this not typical?
Russell,
I’m not sure I would characterize the girls behavior as “enforcing discipline”. I’d call it either “snitching” or “reporting”.
Which term is best depends on a value judgement and a guess at their motives. I’d call it snitching here. YMMV.
I would suspect that snitches are common in gradeschool and high school sports whether it’s boys or girls. Whether the main function of the snitching is to “enforce discipline” or to “get unliked teammates or rivals kicked off” could be debated.
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It’s pretty clear that in this case the girls themselves weren’t enforcing discipline. The girls didn’t get to vote a member off the team, assinging roles or do anything that might be called “discipline”. The most they can do is socially ostracize, gossip or snitch.
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It looks like the picked snitching and asking the coach to meet out the discipline. (Bear in mind, Brandi being off the team means someone else will be placed on it. It also means any rival-of-Brandi might feel some self satisfaction. So there could be a large self-serving element to the snitching.)
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It’s ok by me that the girls snitched. It’s not uncommon with 14 year olds (or heck, even adults!) It’s not very attractive behavior, but it’s not the worst possible thing a kid could do. I do think the schools stupid rules encouraged this unattractive behavior in kids. But authoritarians often encourage unattractive behavior.
Lucia, Boy teams can dish out discipline without getting approval from the coach …. It tends to be direct and physical. ….. oh the other hand, Regina George and her posse could dish it out pretty well too.
Russell
Mean girls usually do try to enforce conformity by gossip, attempts at reputation damage or ostracizing. But in this case they could potentially want the cheer coach to help the ostracizing along by kicking Brandy off the team. Being a cheerleader has an element of “status” for girls at many schools. But the kids just don’t have the power to directly kick the girl off.
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They might be trying to damage reputation by spreading the story. They could try that without involving the cheer coach or any “school rules”. (“Brandi is a potty mouth. Oh the horror!”) But they likely found few people were upset by the potty mouth as I bet it’s not that infrequent of an occurance.
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Generally schools should be trying to get kids to cut out the gossipy attempts at reputation damage and attempts to ostracize. The certainly shouldn’t be helping with the ostracization attempts!
The coach’s daughter could have sued and won I assume, if the circumstances were similar as they appear to be. But it does seem like this could have been a pissed off daughter forcing her mom to make a bad decision, and a coach trying to force team discipline by making an example out of her own daughter.
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Either way the legal aspects of the case don’t really change, only possibly more empathy for the coach/daughter who put themselves in a bad situation that got way out of control.
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This type of situation is about 99% of HOA lawsuits.
Unequal treatment aimed at one owner who then gets hypersensitive to the rules and very quickly notices the rules aren’t being applied fairly.
Tom Scharf,
People (and monkeys) are extremely sensitive to any obvious unfairness. If the rules were being unfairly applied (eg freshmen can’t be on the varsity cheer squad…. except when favored by the coaches) that would for sure precipitate righteous indignation…. even potty mouthed rage. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=exxxXMQSLUc
Tom,
I suspect the coache’s daughter could have sued and won. But it’s really hard for a 14 yo to sue without her parents backing. Brandi had her parents backing her all the way.
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Suits being hard w/o parent’s backing is one reason these cases are few and far between. Lots of parents in the Levy’s position would have said “What’s a year off the cheer squad? Wait it out. Find another hobby.”
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People do get pissed at unfairness. But they also ultimately swallow a lot of it. People pick their battles. That’s what let’s authoritarian cheer coaches and school boards get away with it for a long time.
I think the school and board looked at both BL’s Snap and the coach’s daughter’s comments about another schools’ uniforms as reflecting poorly on the school. Suspending both from positions that officially represent the school could well have been seen as a measure that wouldn’t hurt the students in the long run but would send a message that the school didn’t condone those kinds of remarks.
I have a question going the other way: since when is a picture being blasted out to 250 recipients (and those are just the first-line recipients — one can presume the student erroneously thought the picture would be deleted by Snap and not go any further) a “private” communication? Anyone sending something to dozens (much less hundreds) of people should consider the likelihood of at least one of the recipients spreading it.
It’s been a long time since I was a high school student and I was never in a position as public as a cheerleader but I would certainly have assumed that I had a duty to NOT broadcast pictures or messages that would reflect badly on the school.
Derek
The problem is that school’s don’t get to enforce their views of good or bad behavior if it happens totally away from school. Whether they “condone” those behaviors isn’t relevant. Similarly, suppose I don’t “condone” my neighbor sipping a martini on his porch during happy hour every weeknight. I don’t get to decide that “reflects badly” on the neighborhood and sanction him. I have to grow up, recognize that he’s got rights and I don’t get to set those aside merely because I don’t “condone” what he does.
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A commenter at Volokh called it private. I don’t actually know how many people were sent the message but the issue of “private” vs. “public” had nothing to do with the case.
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The relevant issue was “off campus” vs. “on campus”. Schools don’t get to follow kids around everywhere and regulate their behavior or speech when that happens entirely outside the boundaries of school.
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Honestly, I think a school being so authoritarian that it regulates behavior entirely outside school does hurt students in the long run. With respect to speech: I think it does cause students long term harm to have their first amendment rights suspended for the duration of high school just because some teachers want to control everything.
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I certainly realize that there are teachers and school who have always wanted to reach out and control kids anywhere and everywhere–well beyond the boundaries necessary for the mission of a school. But teachers aren’t Gods or even all powerful Monarch. Teachers are just going to have to grow up and recognize they can’t control every single thing kids do including things they do outside of school. Sometimes that means the ‘reputation’ of the school (whatever that might be) might be harmed. That’s not really a big deal.