I join the opinion of the Court but write separately to explain my understanding of the Court's decision and the framework within which I think cases like this should be analyzed. This is the frst case in which we have considered the constitutionality of a public school's attempt to regulate true off-premises student speech,1and therefore it is important that our opinion not be misunderstood.2 1In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503 (1969), not only did the speech occur on school grounds during the regular school day, but our opinion was specifcally directed at on- premises speech. See id., at 506 (“It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate” (emphasis added)); ibid. (“First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students” (emphasis added)); id., at 507 (“[T]he Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affrming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school offcials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools” (emphasis added)); id., at 512–513 (referring to speech that occurs “in the classroom,” “in the cafeteria, or on the playing feld, or on the campus during the authorized hours”). Tinker makes no reference whatsoever to speech that takes place off premises and outside “authorized hours.”
All our other cases involving the free-speech rights of public school students concerned speech in school or in a school-sponsored event or publication. See Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 677–678 (1986) (school assembly); Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260, 262 (1988) (school newspaper); Morse v. Frederick, 551 U. S. 393, 397 (2007) (display of banner on street near school at school-sponsored event). 2This case does not involve speech by a student at a public college or university. For several reasons, including the age, independence, and living arrangements of such students, regulation of their speech may raise
I
The Court holds—and I agree—that: the First Amendment permits public schools to regulate some student speech that does not occur on school premises during the regular school day; 3this authority is more limited than the authority that schools exercise with respect to on-premises speech; 4 courts should be “skeptical” about the constitutionality of the regulation of off-premises speech; 5the doctrine of in loco parentis “rarely” applies to off-premises speech; 6public school students, like all other Americans, have the right to express “unpopular” ideas on public issues, even when those ideas are expressed in language that some fnd “ `inappropriate' ” or “ `hurtful' ”; 7public schools have the duty to teach students that freedom of speech, including unpopular speech, is essential to our form of self-government; 8the Mahanoy Area High School violated B. L.'s First Amendment rights when it punished her for the messages she posted on her own time while away from school premises; and the judgment of the Third Circuit must therefore be affrmed.
I also agree that it is not prudent for us to attempt at this time to “set forth a broad, highly general First Amendment rule” governing all off-premises speech. Ante, at 189. But in order to understand what the Court has held, it is helpful to very different questions from those presented here. I do not understand the decision in this case to apply to such students.
3See ante, at 188 (stating that a public school's authority to regulate student speech does not “always disappear” when the speech “takes place off campus” (emphasis added)); ibid. (“The school's regulatory interests remain signifcant in some off-campus circumstances” (emphasis added)). 4See ante, at 190 (stating that schools have “diminished” authority to regulate off-premises speech).
5See ante, at 189–190 (“[C]ourts must be more skeptical of a school's efforts to regulate off-campus speech”).
6See ante, at 189 (“[A] school, in relation to off-campus speech, will rarely stand in loco parentis”).
7Ante, at 190–191.
8Ante, at 190.
Page Proof Pending Publication consider the framework within which efforts to regulate off- premises speech should be analyzed.
II
I start with this threshold question: Why does the First Amendment ever allow the free-speech rights of public school students to be restricted to a greater extent than the rights of other juveniles who do not attend a public school? As the Court recognized in Tinker v. Des Moines Independ ent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 509 (1969), when a public school regulates student speech, it acts as an arm of the State in which it is located. Suppose that B. L. had been enrolled in a private school and did exactly what she did in this case—send out vulgar and derogatory messages that focused on her school's cheerleading squad. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would have had no legal basis to punish her and almost certainly would not have even tried. So why should her status as a public school student give the Commonwealth any greater authority to punish her speech?
Our cases involving the regulation of student speech have not directly addressed this question. All those cases involved either in-school speech or speech that was tantamount to in-school speech. See n. 1, supra. And in those cases, the Court appeared to take it for granted that “the special characteristics of the school environment” justifed special rules. Morse v. Frederick, 551 U. S. 393, 397, 403, 405, 406, n. 2, 408 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); Hazel- wood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260, 266 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted); Tinker, 393 U. S., at 506.
Why the Court took this for granted is not hard to imagine. As a practical matter, it is impossible to see how a school could function if administrators and teachers could not regulate on-premises student speech, including by imposing content-based restrictions in the classroom. In a math class, for example, the teacher can insist that students talk about Page Proof Pending Publication math, not some other subject. See Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S., at 279 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“The young polemic who stands on a soapbox during calculus class to deliver an eloquent political diatribe interferes with the legitimate teaching of calculus”). In addition, when a teacher asks a question, the teacher must have the authority to insist that the student respond to that question and not some other question, and a teacher must also have the authority to speak without interruption and to demand that students refrain from interrupting one another. Practical necessity likewise dictates that teachers and school administrators have related authority with respect to other in-school activities like auditorium programs attended by a large audience. See Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 685 (1986) (“A high school assembly . . . is no place for a sexually explicit monologue directed towards an unsuspecting audience of teenage students”); id., at 689 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (“In the present case, school offcials sought only to ensure that a high school assembly proceed in an orderly manner”); see also Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S., at 279 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“[T]he student who delivers a lewd endorsement of a student-government candidate might so extremely distract an impressionable high school audience as to interfere with the orderly operation of the school”).
Because no school could operate effectively if teachers and administrators lacked the authority to regulate in-school speech in these ways, the Court may have felt no need to specify the source of this authority or to explain how the special rules applicable to in-school student speech ft into our broader framework of free-speech case law. But when a public school regulates what students say or write when they are not on school grounds and are not participating in a school program, the school has the obligation to answer the question with which I began: Why should enrollment in a public school result in the diminution of a student's free- speech rights?
Page Proof Pending Publication The only plausible answer that comes readily to mind is consent, either express or implied. The theory must be that by enrolling a child in a public school, parents consent on behalf of the child to the relinquishment of some of the child's free-speech rights.
This understanding is consistent with the conditions to which an adult would implicitly consent by enrolling in an adult education class run by a unit of state or local government. If an adult signs up for, say, a French class, the adult may be required to speak French, to answer the teacher's questions, and to comply with other rules that are imposed for the sake of orderly instruction.
When it comes to children, courts in this country have analyzed the issue of consent by adapting the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis. See Morse, 551 U. S., at 413–416 (Thomas, J., concurring). Under the common law, as Blackstone explained, “[a father could] delegate part of his parental authority . . . to the tutor or schoolmaster of his child; who is then in loco parentis, and has such a portion of the power of the parent committed to his charge, [namely,] that of restraint and correction, as may be necessary to answer the purposes for which he is employed.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 441 (1765) (some emphasis added).
Blackstone's explanation of the doctrine seems to treat it primarily as an implied term in a private employment agreement between a father and those with whom he contracted for the provision of educational services for his child,9and therefore the scope of the delegation that could be inferred depended on “the purposes for which [the tutor or schoolmaster was] employed.” Ibid. If a child was sent to a 9In a sensational and highly publicized mid-19th century case, there was an express delegation, Regina v. Hopley, 2 F. & F. 202, 175 Eng. Rep. 1024 (N. P. 1860), but in other 19th century cases, the delegation was inferred. See Fitzgerald v. Northcote, 4 F. & F. 656, 176 Eng. Rep. 734 (N. P. 1865); State v. Osborne, 24 Mo. App. 309 (1887).
Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication boarding school, the parents would not have been in a position to monitor or control the child's behavior or to attend to the child's welfare on a daily basis, and the schoolmaster would be regarded as having implicitly received the authority to perform those functions around the clock while the child was in residence. On the other hand, if parents hired a tutor to instruct a child in the home on certain subjects during certain hours, the scope of the delegation would be different. The tutor would be in charge during lessons, but the parents would retain most of their authority. In short, the scope of the delegation depended on the scope of the agreed-upon undertaking.
Today, of course, the educational picture is quite different. The education of children within a specifed age range is compulsory,10and States specify the minimum number of hours per day and the minimum number of days per year that a student must attend classes, as well as many aspects of the school curriculum.11 Parents are not required to enroll their children in a public school. They can select a private school if a suitable one is available and they can afford the tuition, and they may also be able to educate their children at home if they have the time and ability and can meet the standards that their State imposes.12 But by choice or 10See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 660, n. 14 (1977) (noting that “compulsory school attendance laws were in force in all the States” by 1918).
11See National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), State Education Practices, Table 5.14: Number of Instructional Days and Hours in the School Year, by State, 2018, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/ tab5_14.asp.
12Pennsylvania, for example, requires a minimum of 180 days of instruction per year. See Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 24, § 13–1327.1(c) (Purdon 2016). Students must be taught English, mathematics, science, geography, history, civics, safety education, health, physical education, music, and art. §§ 13–1327.1(c)(1)–(2). Parents are required to maintain current and detailed records of their child's learning materials and progress, § 13– 1327.1(e)(1), and they must turn those records over to a teacher or psychologist for an annual evaluation to determine whether “an appropriate Page Proof Pending Publication necessity, nearly 90% of the students in this country attend public schools,13and parents and public schools do not enter into a contractual relationship.
If in loco parentis is transplanted from Blackstone's England to the 21st century United States, what it amounts to is simply a doctrine of inferred parental consent to a public school's exercise of a degree of authority that is commensurate with the task that the parents ask the school to perform. Because public school students attend school for only part of the day and continue to live at home, the degree of authority conferred is obviously less than that delegated to the head of a late-18th century boarding school, but because public school students are taught outside the home, the authority conferred may be greater in at least some respects than that enjoyed by a tutor of Blackstone's time.
So how much authority to regulate speech do parents implicitly delegate when they enroll a child at a public school? The answer must be that parents are treated as having relinquished the measure of authority that the schools must be able to exercise in order to carry out their state-mandated educational mission, as well as the authority to perform any other functions to which parents expressly or implicitly agree—for example, by giving permission for a child to education is occurring,” §13–1327.1(e)(2). The evaluation also includes an interview of the child. Ibid. Once the evaluation is completed, it is submitted to the superintendent of the public school district of residence. §§ 13–1327.1(e)(2), (h)(1). If the superintendent and a hearing examiner fnd that the child is not being supplied an appropriate education, and the parents' appeal of that decision is unsuccessful, the child will be promptly enrolled in the public school district of residence or a private school. §§ 13–1327.1(k)–(l).
13See NCES, School Choice in the United States, 2019, Table 206.20: Percentage Distribution of Students Ages 5 through 17 Attending Kindergarten through 12th Grade, By School Type or Participation in Homeschooling and Selected Child, Parent, and Household Characteristics, Selected Years 1999 Through 2016, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest//d19/ tables/dt19_206.20.asp.
Page Proof Pending Publication participate in an extracurricular activity or to go on a school trip.
III
I have already explained what this delegated authority means with respect to student speech during standard classroom instruction. And it is reasonable to infer that this authority extends to periods when students are in school but are not in class, for example, when they are walking in a hall, eating lunch, congregating outside before the school day starts, or waiting for a bus after school. During the entire school day, a school must have the authority to protect everyone on its premises, and therefore schools must be able to prohibit threatening and harassing speech. An effective instructional atmosphere could not be maintained in a school, and good teachers would be hard to recruit and retain, if students were free to abuse or disrespect them. And the school has a duty to protect students while in school because their parents are unable to do that during those hours. See Morse, 551 U. S., at 424 (Alito, J., concurring). But even when students are on school premises during regular school hours, they are not stripped of their free-speech rights.
Tinker teaches that expression that does not interfere with a class (such as by straying from the topic, interrupting the teacher or other students, etc.) cannot be suppressed unless it “involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.” 393 U. S., at 513.
IV
A
A public school's regulation of off-premises student speech is a different matter. While the decision to enroll a student in a public school may be regarded as conferring the authority to regulate some off-premises speech (a subject I address below), enrollment cannot be treated as a complete transfer of parental authority over a student's speech. In our society, parents, not the State, have the primary authority and duty to raise, educate, and form the character of their children. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 232 (1972) (“The history and culture of Western civilization refect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition”); Pierce v. Soci ety of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534–535 (1925) (discussing “the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control”). Parents do not implicitly relinquish all that authority when they send their children to a public school. As the Court notes, it would be far-fetched to suggest that enrollment implicitly confers the right to regulate what a child says or writes at all times of day and throughout the calendar year. See ante, at 189–190.14 Any such argument would run headlong into the fundamental principle that a State “may not deny a beneft to a person 14There is no basis for concluding that the original public meaning of the free-speech right protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments was understood by Congress or the legislatures that ratifed those Amendments as permitting a public school to punish a wide swath of off-premises student speech. Compare post, at 212–215 (Thomas, J., dissenting). At the time of the adoption of the First Amendment, public education was virtually unknown, and the Amendment did not apply to the States. And as for the Fourteenth Amendment, research has found only one pre-1868 case involving a public school's regulation of a student's off-premises speech. In Lander v. Seaver, 32 Vt. 114 (1859), an 11-year-old boy, while driving his father's cow by the home of his teacher, called the teacher “Old Jack Seaver” in the presence of other students. Id., at 115 (emphasis deleted). The next day, the teacher “whipped him with a small rawhide.” Ibid. In a tort suit against the teacher for assault and battery, the Supreme Court of Vermont reversed the lower court's judgment for the teacher but opined that the teacher had the authority to punish the student's speech because of its effect on the operation of the school. Id., at 120–121, 125. This decision is of negligible value for present purposes. It does not appear that any claim was raised under the state constitutional provision protecting freedom of speech. And even if finty Vermont parents at the time in question could be understood to have implicitly delegated to the teacher the authority to whip their son for his off-premises speech, the same inference is wholly unrealistic today.
Page Proof Pending Publication on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected . . . freedom of speech even if he has no entitlement to that beneft.” 15 Agency for Int'l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int'l, Inc., 570 U. S. 205, 214 (2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). While the in-school restrictions discussed above are essential to the operation of a public school system, any argument in favor of expansive regulation of off-premises speech must contend with this fundamental free-speech principle.
B
The degree to which enrollment in a public school can be regarded as a delegation of authority over off-campus speech depends on the nature of the speech and the circumstances under which it occurs. I will not attempt to provide a complete taxonomy of off-premises speech, but relevant lower court cases tend to fall into a few basic groups. And with respect to speech in each of these groups, the question that courts must ask is whether parents who enroll their children in a public school can reasonably be understood to have delegated to the school the authority to regulate the speech in question.
One category of off-premises student speech falls easily within the scope of the authority that parents implicitly or explicitly provide. This category includes speech that takes place during or as part of what amounts to a temporal or spatial extension of the regular school program, e. g., online instruction at home, assigned essays or other homework, and transportation to and from school. Also included are statements made during other school activities in which students participate with their parents' consent, such as school trips, school sports and other extracurricular activities that may take place after regular school hours or off school premises, and after-school programs for students who would otherwise be without adult supervision during that time. Abusive 15Here, the Pennsylvania Constitution required that B. L. and all other students be offered “a thorough and effcient system of public education.” Art. III, § 14.
Page Proof Pending Publication speech that occurs while students are walking to and from school may also fall into this category on the theory that it is school attendance that puts students on that route and in the company of the fellow students who engage in the abuse. The imperatives that justify the regulation of student speech while in school—the need for orderly and effective instruction and student protection—apply more or less equally to these off-premises activities.
Most of the specifc examples of off-premises speech that the Court mentions fall into this category. See ante, at 188 (speech taking place during “remote learning,” “participation in other online school activities,” “activities taken for school credit,” “travel en route to and from the school,” “[the time during which] the school is responsible for the student,” and “extracurricular activities,” as well as speech taking place on “the school's immediate surroundings” or in the context of “writing . . . papers”).16 The Court's broad statements about off-premises speech must be understood with this in mind.
16Two other examples mentioned by the Court—“communications to school e-mail accounts or phones” and speech “on a school's website”—may fall into the same category if they concern school work. Ante, at 188. The Court also mentions “breaches of school security devices,” ibid., but such breaches may be punishable regardless of whether the perpetrator is a student at the school. See, e. g., 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 7611 (Cum. Supp. 2016) (“Unlawful use of computer and other computer crimes”). Another specifc example provided by the Court is “all speech taking place over school laptops.” Ante, at 188. I do not take this statement to apply under all circumstances to all student speech on such laptops. In a well- publicized case, a public high school that provided laptops to high school students used those computers to surreptitiously monitor students' private messages and to photograph them in their homes. See Robbins v. Lower Merion School Dist., 2010 WL 3421026, *1 (ED Pa., Aug. 30, 2010); see also Defendants' Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certifcation and in Support of Defendants' Cross-Motion for Entry of Permanent Equitable Relief in Robbins v. Lower Merion School Dist., No. 2:10–cv–00665 (ED Pa.), pp. 4–5. I do not understand the Court to approve such a practice. In assessing the degree to which a school can regulate speech on a laptop that a school provides for student use outside school, it would be important to know the terms of the agreement under which the laptop was provided.
Page Proof Pending Publication At the other end of the spectrum, there is a category of speech that is almost always beyond the regulatory authority of a public school. This is student speech that is not expressly and specifcally directed at the school, school administrators, teachers, or fellow students and that addresses matters of public concern, including sensitive subjects like politics, religion, and social relations. Speech on such matters lies at the heart of the First Amendment's protection, see Lane v. Franks, 573 U. S. 228, 235 (2014) (“Speech by citizens on matters of public concern lies at the heart of the First Amendment”); Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of West ern N. Y., 519 U. S. 357, 377 (1997) (“Leafetting and commenting on matters of public concern are classic forms of speech that lie at the heart of the First Amendment”); Capi tal Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, 760 (1995) (“[A] free-speech clause without religion would be Hamlet without the prince”); McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U. S. 334, 347 (1995) (“[A]dvocacy of a politically controversial viewpoint . . . is the essence of First Amendment expression”); Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U. S. 46, 50 (1988) (“At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free fow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern”); Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 145 (1983) (“[S]peech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection” (internal quotation marks omitted)), and the connection between student speech in this category and the ability of a public school to carry out its instructional program is tenuous.
If a school tried to regulate such speech, the most that it could claim is that offensive off-premises speech on important matters may cause controversy and recriminations among students and may thus disrupt instruction and good order on school premises. But it is a “bedrock principle” that speech may not be suppressed simply because it expresses ideas that are “offensive or disagreeable.” Texas v. Page Proof Pending Publication Johnson, 491 U. S. 397, 414 (1989); see also Matal v. Tam, 582 U. S. 218, 223 (2017) (“Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend”); FCC v. Pacifca Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 745 (1978) (opinion of Stevens, J.) (“[T]he fact that society may fnd speech offensive is not a suffcient reason for suppressing it”); Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc., 427 U. S. 50, 63–64 (1976) (plurality opinion) (“Nor may speech be curtailed because it invites dispute, creates dissatisfaction with conditions the way they are, or even stirs people to anger”); Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 592 (1969) (“It is frmly settled that under our Constitution the public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers”). It is unreasonable to infer that parents who send a child to a public school thereby authorize the school to take away such a critical right.
To her credit, petitioner's attorney acknowledged this during oral argument. As she explained, even if such speech is deeply offensive to members of the school community and may cause a disruption, the school cannot punish the student who spoke out; “that would be a heckler's veto.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 15–16.17 The school may suppress the disruption, but it may not punish the off-campus speech that prompted other students to engage in misconduct. See id., at 5–6 (“[I]f listeners riot because they fnd speech offensive, schools should punish the rioters, not the speaker. In other words, the hecklers don't get the veto”); see also id., at 27–28.
This is true even if the student's off-premises speech on a matter of public concern is intemperate and crude. When a 17Counsel was asked what a school could have done during the Vietnam War era if a student said, “[the] war is immoral, American soldiers are baby killers, I hope there are a lot of casualties so that people will rise up.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 15. Counsel agreed that “[e]ven if that would cause a disruption in the school,” “the school couldn't do anything about it.” Ibid. In her words, “that would be a heckler's veto, no can do.” Id., at 15–16. Page Proof Pending Publication student engages in oral or written communication of this nature, the student is subject to whatever restraints the student's parents impose, but the student enjoys the same First Amendment protection against government regulation as all other members of the public. And the Court has held that these rights extend to speech that is couched in vulgar and offensive terms. See, e. g., Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U. S. 388 (2019); Matal, 582 U. S. 218; Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U. S. 443 (2011); Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444 (1969) (per curiam).
Between these two extremes (i. e., off-premises speech that is tantamount to on-campus speech and general statements made off premises on matters of public concern) lie the categories of off-premises student speech that appear to have given rise to the most litigation. A survey of lower court cases reveals several prominent categories. I will mention some of those categories, but like the Court, I do not attempt to set out the test to be used in judging the constitutionality of a public school's efforts to regulate such speech.
One group of cases involves perceived threats to school administrators, teachers, other staff members, or students. Laws that apply to everyone prohibit defned categories of threats,18see, e. g., 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2706(a); 19Tex. Penal 18 The First Amendment permits prohibitions of “true threats,” which are “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343, 359 (2003).
19This law is commonly referred to as Pennsylvania's “terrorist threat statute.” It prohibits “communicat[ing], either directly or indirectly, a threat to: (1) commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize another; (2) cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly or facility of public transportation; or (3) otherwise cause serious public inconvenience, or cause terror or serious public inconvenience with reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.”
Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication Code Ann. § 22.07(a) (West 2020),20but schools have claimed that their duties demand broader authority.21 Another common category involves speech that criticizes or derides school administrators, teachers, or other staff members.22 Schools may assert that parents who send their children to a public school implicitly authorize the school to demand that the child exhibit the respect that is required for orderly and effective instruction, but parents surely do not relinquish their children's ability to complain in an appropriate manner about wrongdoing, dereliction, or even plain 20In Texas, it is a crime to “threate[n] to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property” with specifed intent, such as the intent to “place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury” or to “interrupt the occupation or use of a . . . public place.” 21See, e. g., McNeil v. Sherwood School Dist. 88J, 918 F. 3d 700, 704 (CA9 2019) (per curiam) (student created a “hit list” of students and drew graphic images of violence); Wynar v. Douglas County School Dist., 728 F. 3d 1062, 1065–1066 (CA9 2013) (student spoke about committing a school shooting); Wisniewski v. Board of Ed., 494 F. 3d 34, 36 (CA2 2007) (student sent a message depicting a pistol fring a bullet at his English teacher's head); Porter v. Ascension Parish School Bd., 393 F. 3d 608, 611 (CA5 2004) (student drew a picture showing his school under attack by a gasoline tanker, missile launcher, helicopter, and armed individuals); Doe v. Pulaski County Special School Dist., 306 F. 3d 616, 619 (CA8 2002) (en banc) (student drafted letters expressing a desire to molest, rape, and murder his ex-girlfriend); but see Conroy v. Lacey Twp. School Dist., 2020 WL 528896, *1 (D NJ, Jan. 31, 2020) (two high school students posted photos on Snapchat showing them with legally purchased guns at a shooting range on a Saturday, which another student claimed made him “ `nervous to come to school' ”); see also Conroy v. Lacey Twp. School Dist., No. 3:19–cv–09452 (D NJ, Aug. 25, 2020) (order dismissing case with prejudice after settlement). The cases cited in this footnote and footnotes 22– 23 are listed to show types of claims addressed by the lower courts. I do not express any view about the correctness of the decisions. 22See, e. g., Doninger v. Niehoff, 527 F. 3d 41, 45 (CA2 2008) (member of student council posted a message on her personal blog complaining about the administration and encouraging readers to call or e-mail the school to complain); Evans v. Bayer, 684 F. Supp. 2d 1365, 1367 (SD Fla. 2010) (student created a Facebook group “for students to voice their dislike” of their teacher).
incompetence. See Brief for College Athlete Advocates as Amicus Curiae 12–21; Brief for Student Press Law Center et al. as Amici Curiae 10–11, 17–20, 30.
Perhaps the most diffcult category involves criticism or hurtful remarks about other students.23 Bullying and severe harassment are serious (and age-old) problems, but these concepts are not easy to defne with the precision required for a regulation of speech. See, e. g., Saxe v. State College Area School Dist., 240 F. 3d 200, 206–207 (CA3 2001).
V
The present case does not fall into any of these categories. Instead, it simply involves criticism (albeit in a crude manner) of the school and an extracurricular activity. Unfattering speech about a school or one of its programs is different from speech that criticizes or derides particular individuals, and for the reasons detailed by the Court and by Judge Ambro in his separate opinion below, the school's justifcations for punishing B. L.'s speech were weak. She sent the messages and image in question on her own time while at a local convenience store. They were transmitted via a medium that preserved the communication for only 24 hours, and she sent them to a select group of “friends.” She did not send the messages to the school or to any administrator, teacher, or coach, and no member of the school staff would have even known about the messages if some of B. L.'s “friends” had not taken it upon themselves to spread the word.
23See, e. g., S. J. W. v. Lee's Summit R–7 School Dist., 696 F. 3d 771, 773–774 (CA8 2012) (high school juniors posted a variety of offensive, racist, and sexually-explicit comments about particular female classmates); Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools, 652 F. 3d 565, 567–568 (CA4 2011) (student created an online discussion group accusing another student of having a sexually-transmitted disease); Dunkley v. Board of Ed. of Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School Dist., 216 F. Supp. 3d 485, 487 (NJ 2016) (student used an anonymous Twitter account to insult other students based on their appearances and athletic abilities). Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication The school did not claim that the messages caused any signifcant disruption of classes. The most it asserted along these lines was that they “upset” some students (including members of the cheerleading squad),24caused students to ask some questions about the matter during an algebra class taught by a cheerleading coach,25and put out “negativity . . . that could impact students in the school.” 26 The freedom of students to speak off-campus would not be worth much if it gave way in the face of such relatively minor complaints.
Speech cannot be suppressed just because it expresses thoughts or sentiments that others fnd upsetting, and the algebra teacher had the authority to quell in-class discussion of B. L.'s messages and demand that the students concentrate on the work of the class.
As for the messages' effect on the morale of the cheerleading squad, the coach of a team sport may wish to take group cohesion and harmony into account in selecting members of the team, in assigning roles, and in allocating playing time, but it is self-evident that this authority has limits. (To take an obvious example, a coach could not discriminate against a student for blowing the whistle on serious misconduct.)
And here, the school did not simply take B. L.'s messages into account in deciding whether her attitude would make her effective in doing what cheerleaders are primarily expected to do: encouraging vocal fan support at the events where they appear. Instead, the school imposed punishment: suspension for a year from the cheerleading squad despite B. L.'s apologies.
There is, fnally, the matter of B. L.'s language. There are parents who would not have been pleased with B. L.'s language and gesture, but whatever B. L.'s parents thought about what she did, it is not reasonable to infer that they gave the school the authority to regulate her choice of lan24App. 82.
25Id., at 82–84.
26Id., at 81.
guage when she was off school premises and not engaged in any school activity. And B. L.'s school does not claim that it possesses or makes any effort to exercise the authority to regulate the vocabulary and gestures of all its students 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.
There are more than 90,000 public school principals in this country27and more than 13,000 separate school districts.28 The overwhelming majority of school administrators, teachers, and coaches are men and women who are deeply dedicated to the best interests of their students, but it is predictable that there will be occasions when some will get carried away, as did the school offcials in the case at hand. If today's decision teaches any lesson, it must be that the regulation of many types of off-premises student speech raises serious First Amendment concerns, and school offcials should proceed cautiously before venturing into this territory.