The reasoning of Judge Thomas Ambro with the other two 3rd Circuit judges on Levy’s case was that the suspension was unwarranted. Because she “was not disruptive, either to the cheerleading team or school.”
The Pennsylvania school district appealed to the Supreme Court. They disputed the idea that off-campus student speech was beyond a schools’ authority to punish.
Freedom of Speech upheld
The case is the latest in a line of school versus student disputes that started with a Vietnam-era case Tinker v. Des Moines. In that case, students were suspended for wearing armbands to protest the Vietnam war. The Supreme Court landmark decision sided with the students. The court said students don’t “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion that Levy’s First Amendment freedom of speech rights had been violated. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, claiming he would have upheld the cheerleading suspension.
