Dean of Students
Hey old friends, fellow Deans of Students maintaining discipline in public high schools: the United States Supreme Court is talking to you. They are talking about the absolute bane of your existence – social media. I remember: sitting in the office, looking at screenshots and seeing the often profane and explicit messages from one student to another. I tried to find some way to “make it right” for the student attacked, and for the parents who were unable to protect their child.
What school rule applied? Do you suspend a kid for writing on social media on their personal phone in terms that you surely would “boot them” for if they said it out loud in the cafeteria? How did the school become the social media “police”, and where did we gain the expertise or the authority to make those decisions? And finally, while you see what’s in front of you – what are you missing that you can’t see? Where is the entire “message chain”?
The Facebook Era
It was easier when I sat in that chair (with school purchasing, probably the same one). That was the “Facebook Era” – the only “social media” that mattered. Facebook wasn’t really ready for any of this, the tools to block or hide posts were clumsy and difficult to use. As “the Dean”, I had a “dummy” account, one not directly connected to my personal accounts, that could be used for “investigations”. It was originally for threats; an outgrowth of the Columbine violence. We had to know what was going on out there. No school wanted to have a joke like “the trench coat mafia” in last year’s yearbook turnout out to be the terrorists in this year’s library (that happened at Columbine).
But that “dummy” account opened a whole new world of potential problems. Sure we caught the rumors of kids bringing weapons to school. We could intervene early, before some kid took action, before he (almost always a he) had a chance to do something irrevocable. But we also were flooded with bullying, blackmail, and hate that used to be whispered conversations on the back of the bus. Now it was public, often without attribution, and permanently saved in the cyberworld. Do we act on it all? Could we act on words typed in the middle of the night, in a kid’s bedroom? How far did “disruption of the educational process” go?
Tinker
“Disruption of the educational process” is a term of art. It’s the language of the Supreme Court in Tinker versus Des Moines, the foundational case dealing with students and their freedom of speech. Essentially, Tinker guarantees students the freedom to express themselves, as long as that expression doesn’t disrupt the “educational process”, the primary task of public education. Tinker stated that schools have an educational duty to allow students freedom of expression as an “…important part of the educational process”.
The balance is between “disruption of the educational process” and the limits of “in loco parentis” (the school’s authority in place of parents). Mom or Dad can confiscate a phone, or punish their child at their discretion. But schools have to meet a higher standard to take disciplinary action for “speech”. And that standard is based on whether the “speech” disrupts the school from achieving its primary goal – education.
Pizza Hut
When I was teaching back in the 1980’s, I used to raise the “Pizza Hut” question to my government classes. If a school team went to Pizza Hut and had a food fight – of course it was the school’s problem. The school was directly in loco parentis. But if some seniors went to Pizza Hut after the game and had the same kind of fight – was that still the school’s problem? What if it was “our” kids and another school’s kids? A food fight isn’t “free speech”, and as long as it doesn’t happen in the school cafeteria, it isn’t disrupting the “educational process”. So where do we draw the line?
Mahoney
The Supreme Court gave us some guidance yesterday. In Mahoney Local School District v BL, a student, BL, failed to make the varsity cheer squad. On her personal phone from a local store over the weekend, she posted on Snap Chat making profane comments about the cheer squad and took a picture giving “the finger”. Snap Chat posts go to a limited number of friends, and are supposed to “disappear”. But other cheer squad members took “screen shots” of her comments, and brought them to the attention of school authorities. The school suspended the BL from the junior varsity cheer squad for the remainder of the year.
There were no threats, personal or otherwise, to the cheer squad members or coaches. BL was simply expressing her dissatisfaction at not making varsity, as thousands of kids have done for decades or more. The difference: it was on social media.
What If?
Had BL walked into the cheer coach’s office and used the profanity and the hand signal, then clearly the school could (and should) discipline her. If she was in her bedroom talking to a friend and did the same thing, then clearly it would NOT be the school’s concern. But putting something on social media ultimately made it “public”. Her posts became the topic of discussion for ten minutes in Algebra class. School authorities felt it threatened the cohesive of the cheer squad. That was enough for them to feel they should take action.
But the Supreme Court said the school was wrong. The majority opinion made three points. The first – it was off-campus, and therefore the school had less authority “in loco parentis”. The second – the school does not have authority over student speech twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
And in the third and most important point – the decision said: “…the school itself has an interest in protecting a student’s unpopular expression, especially when the expression takes place off campus, because America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy”.
Teaching Free Speech
The Court ruled that BL had the freedom of speech to say what she said, where and when she said it, on Snap Chat. They ruled the school didn’t have authority over her at that time. And, in fact, the Court ruled the school needed to protect her right to say those things, as an educational exercise in democracy.
So Dean, where does that leave you now? If BL had threatened the Cheer Coach, you could still discipline her. But what about the next BL, who makes racist statements on her “chat”. Is that also protected – or does it threaten the cohesion of the multi-racial cheer team enough to allow for disciplinary action? And what about that all-encompassing phrase in all our student manuals: actions “un-becoming” of a co-curricular participant. The Court didn’t answer that – so you’ll still have to do what you think is right.
Glad I’m in my “office chair” — at home.
