Two cheerleaders and the F-I-G-H-T for free speech

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Dec 30, 2020

Forgotten in a lot of that piling on is the central issue: How much responsibility do schools have to make sure students of all colors can have their complaints heard and acted upon?

And did the university give a fair hearing to Groves’ pleas that the three-second video, in which the N-word was not directed at anyone in particular, did not fairly represent who she is now?

Compared with the Virginia students, the Supreme Court’s Pennsylvania case sounds almost simple. The cheerleader known in pleadings as “B.L.” was punished for an image of her with raised middle fingers and text that included four F-bombs, all of it expressed in anger while shopping with friends after she failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad.

Although Snapchat’s snaps are famously ephemeral, B.L.’s selfie was preserved in a screenshot by another student and wound up in the hands of school coaches, according to court filings. The school suspended the student from cheerleading for a year, saying the punishment was needed to “avoid chaos” and maintain a “teamlike environment.”

Her attorneys argued and an appeals court agreed that she could not be punished for what she said outside of school grounds. Now it’s the Supreme Court’s turn to give the final word, if it so desires. But the underlying issues aren’t going away any faster than some students might wish their ill-advised Snapchats would.

I am not too coldhearted to appreciate the momentous importance that rejection from a cheering squad, among other setbacks, can hold on a student’s life. But, as we parents have had to warn our kids since the dawn of the social media age, always presume that whatever you put on the internet will stay there forever — and, sooner or later, it might find its way directly to those whom you least want to see it.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)