The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a cut-and-dry First Amendment case on April 28th, but the erratic Department of Justice has thrown its hat into the ring in hopes of complicating the matter. In B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District, a 14-year-old girl was punished by her administrators at her school for writing “Fuck School fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” on Snapchat after failing to make her varsity cheer team. She was subsequently disciplined by her junior varsity squad after a tattle tale showed the message to her coach.
While established legal precedents allow public schools to police what students say during school hours, landmark cases like Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) defend the right to free speech off campus.
Because the case only deals with expressions of obscene language, the left-wing interest group ACLU has decided to represent the plaintiff in Mahoney.