Crimes and Punishments

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Fuck school!  Fuck softball!  Fuck cheer!  Fuck everything!  

With this short rant on Snapchat, accompanied by an image of the ranter and a friend flipping the bird,  a Pennsylvania ninth-grader reignited a smoldering debate  over the rights of schools to discipline students for speech or behavior outside of school.  Her ill-advised tantrum was response to her failure to make the varsity cheer squad.

The student was suspended from the junior varsity cheer team for a year. She sued the school district and won a sweeping victory in the Third District Court of Appeals, which ruled that the First Amendment does not allow schools to punish students for speech outside school grounds.  The school district is appealing to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) claiming, with some justification, that the nation’s 100,000 schools need clarity on their rights to discipline students for transgressions outside of school, especially on social media. 

In Virginia, high school senior Missy Groves had her life turned upside down when a classmate posted a video she made in her freshman year.  The video, also first posted on Snapchat, showed Groves staring at the camera and saying, “I can drive, n*****.”  (My practice is to avoid full spelling of racial epithets, which are far more offensive and obscene than “fuck.”)  

Groves had been accepted as an incoming member of the national champion cheer team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  When the video went viral, the cheer team withdrew the offer (not so cheery).   The University pressured her to decline admission and, when she declined to decline, they rescinded the offer.

(There seems to be something about cheer teams, but perhaps it’s merely coincidental.)

Two distinct issues arise from these cases.  Although I cannot predict what the Supreme Court might decide if they take the case, it seems inarguable that schools must have the authority to address issues that arise beyond the schoolhouse doors.  With the explosion of social media and the  godawful increase in online learning, especially during the pandemic, the “schoolhouse” has very indistinct boundaries.  If the digital neighborhood is out of a school’s reach, maintaining a safe school community is impossible.  

Which invites the second question:  How should schools deal with offensive speech or behavior?  Case law is clear.   The Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."  It seems intuitively undeniable that they would therefore not shed those rights on their iPhone at midnight.  So what are the boundaries, in or out of school?   

To oversimplify, speech or behavior that is in “bad taste” is protected while speech or behavior that is “disruptive” is fair game for sanction.  Under this standard, the ninth grader’s F-bombs and gestures would seem to be elegant examples of “bad taste” and hardly disruptive, except to the fragile sensibilities of a school administrator.  Punishing her seems petty. 

On the other hand,  a student’s use of the N-word might well be construed as “disruptive” - or worse.  In Grove’s case, the offense was several years old and she had apparently grown in the interim, as she actively supported Black Lives Matter protests in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.   The brouhaha that arose when her offensive seconds of bad judgment came to light led the University of Tennessee to turn her life upside down.  They essentially deemed her speech “disruptive,” claiming that it would agitate the cheer team and make her presence on campus a distraction and too painful for her, a judgment that seems a bit presumptuous.

If SCOTUS unwisely decides that schools may not address violations that occur “off campus,” maintaining a safe and supportive community becomes exponentially more difficult. In my 19 years as head of a progressive private school I addressed many “off campus” issues. At the extreme were incidents of sexual assault or harassment.  More common were accusations of online bullying, which included the occasional entitled parent construing exclusion of their child from a birthday party as a class 1 felony.  Nearly every off-campus incident had reverberating effects within the school community.  I recognized then,  and recognize now, that my private school had the privilege of relative impunity not enjoyed by public school educators.

If SCOTUS rules in favor of schools, a different problem ensues.  Too many educators respond to transgressions, on or off-campus, with punishment and/or humiliation.  The examples of students in some public and charter schools cowering in fear or wetting their pants are infuriating.  Even a dilettante psychologist knows that punishment and humiliation do not change behavior.  They suppress behavior only to have it erupt elsewhere. 

The ninth grader in the case above might have benefitted  more from understanding and support than a punitive suspension.   Missy Groves suffered more from a tsunami of hate on social media than any individual suffered from her immature use of the N-word, which was more a crime of cultural appropriation than a racist attack.

Students have incompletely developed frontal lobes.  Expecting exquisite judgment or highly developed impulse control is unrealistic and unfair.  In my 19 years as head I expelled three (!) students and readmitted one of them when he demonstrated real growth.  The father of one of the other students thanked me, as his son needed help and the expulsion was the overdue catalyst.

Every abrasion is a learning opportunity for both the offender and the offended.  Any educator knows that some students (and parents) get perverse pleasure from the punishment delivered to the alleged miscreant.   They can learn more from observing compassion and the gifts of reconciliation and redemption.  If you believe, as I  do, that school is about finding one’s place in a civilized society, these negotiations should be at the center of a school’s mission.

 The Supreme Court must give schools the right to respond to speech and behavior among and between members of their community, regardless of when and where. 

Along with that right, as with all rights, comes the responsibility to exercise it with wisdom,  patience, kindness, and a rich understanding of child development.