campus for three reasons st speech can cause on campus disruption nd response approach would create chaos and rd a school access requirement and tinker substantial destruction test guard against abuse st off campus speech particularly on social media can be disruptive the internet's ubiquity instantaneous and mass dissemination and potential permanent make the speaker's location irrelevant yet the decision below arbitrarily treats location as dispositive nd response concedes schools can address off campus speech but they propose an administrative nightmare where the sheer complexity heightens the risk of calamitous error  seven part test would define the school environment nd then one would check if the off campus speech this with is five separate st amendment doctrines that have never been defined in the school context tinker with mystifyingly toggle in and out of coverage as kids move about today this court should not substitute the twenty year status quo of trying to take her off campus her schools cannot target political and religious speech take her plight off campus only when the student targets both a school audience and a school topic and more broadly this court can clarify tankers reach both on and off campus it is irrelevant critical or unpopular speech is the but for cause of substantial disruption the speech schools can't regulate political or religious speech but also that the schools can regulate speech from off campus that is directed at the school so what do you do with political or religious speech that is directed at the school you know a sign that this student is carrying around off campus that says don't approve the school bond funding referendum where how do you balance the the one situation against the other this is the government's approach to it i don't know when you go to do that either which is easier for court to handle in terms of protecting free speech one it make sure the audience is the school and the topic has to be about the school and it is easier go ahead and jump to tanker and say that no matter how much of a bad someone take that speech that's not a thumbs down to destruction just because listeners are offended well well let's let's say that the the the protesters don't approve the school referendum because the school is there is awful  school so you could have that would be a school audience and it's missed johnson is a school topic so it's a nexus pass and the reason why and that could never satisfy tanker and that is because it's just the letters reaction speech that is critical saying the exact same thing on campus yet so tinker again assuming it fits the nexus testing or is always going to be context acetic and whether teachers or school officials can forecast a reasonable disruption depends on when and where the students speak how many people hear it and what the student said and when and where the classroom is going to be very different as opposed to a sleepover but that when it's on social media to two hundred people or even a one thousand people there's no question that the effect might be different but in your case if you want to say miss johnson you're terrible teacher she should do that in office hours on social media not the middle of class that's disruptive can do that in our interference but that was the instruction of the thing about mrs johnson this would that make any difference where you post well that's precisely correct when it comes to the internet things like time and geography are meaningless and i make absolutely no sense whatsoever to say that the same speech is somehow within the school's regulations if it's one foot on campus or one foot off campus or at the starbucks or at the t v s are in your car on the school bus the internet is ubiquitous matter now it's a different thing if you take something that is political speech like the confederate flag alone it communicate nothing but if you take that speech and terrorize a black student with it then the message is i don't want you here at the school because you're black that's very different than just the confederate flag standing alone i don't know what to communicate i need to know more about context but it's inconceivable that talking about a wide variety of religious or political speech unless you take it in a way t uses that as a weapon to terrorize a particular student or teacher it is off limits and has been off limits since nine hundred and sixty nine and the other side is just wrong to suggest that school somehow are  seems to say in the context of the student protest in school at least schools you cannot punish unless there is material in substantial disruption enough after all if i look at the case here in the record is there in the record something that shows that what this young woman did i mean she used to wear words you know unattractive swear words off campus that cause a material and substantial disruption and i don't see much evidence and did and was twittering off campus did i mean my goodness a reschooling the country would be doing nothing but punishing and it certainly didn't help either those i mean it's are up to others it didn't hurt others as far as i'm aware as far as i can see in the record so why isn't that the case i mean i'm sure if you tinkered put some limits on what you can punish in school you think a force you are outside of school what is mystifying about the rd circuit and the other side brief is that we think tanker faithfully applied and this court has not had a tanker decision since tanker so i think it would be helpful to explain that a substantial disruption can't be a direct but for causation but more to your point they say schools can do whatever they want under five separate doctrines they say look at strict scrutiny bowling i don't know what they say extracurricular i don't know what they say either maybe there's a conduct exception and also threats but let's adapt all of this for the for the kid environment tinker has been a familiar test for fi fifty one years and it is in this case i don't think it's that difficult to question his here she targeted her coaches the sport and another team mates ability to play and the coach reasonably forecasted someone who  profane gesture and a word three of those things is not somebody you lot of the bottom of the pyramid and the record was not just the swearing but it was disrespect for the for the coaches and the entire team and her teammates in connection with the a school program about subjects such as politics religion morality the economics of the problem is when the student says something that those subjects but links it in some way to a student or a teacher and what you say is the solicitor general makes a similar argument it matters whether the speech targets the immoral american soldiers are baby killers i hope there are a lot of casualties so that people will rise up even if that would cause a disruption in the school i understand you to say the school couldn't do anything about it was that right correct that w all right so now the student says exactly the same thing and he adds quote our classmate johnny jones brother is one of those blankety blank baby killers in the school do something about fat so the bag would turn out o bviously where if it's on the internet the location it turned on i think what the rd circuit originally said in fact obviously was a decision by you that says there has to be a line drawn between somebody taking offense at actual is where our i think there is a problem because when you tell me that it's or you're one of the other very able to turn says it's context specific it depends on the facts of the particular case there are a lot of things you have to  under this does a lot of policies it off if the state and its certainly unwritten statutory law twenty six states that the standard for bowling is severe persistent harassment that interferes actually prevents that child from getting an education so that being offended is irrelevant you have to basically it has to be very severe and persistent i just don't understand what that means in concrete terms i'll give you another this is basically up a student believes that someone who is biologically male is a male and there is a student who is biologically male but identifies as a woman has adopted a female name but the students do has the objection st of this person by the person's prior male name and uses male fro problem that i have with tinker is that i'm not sure it's any clearer a rule than any of the other situ criticizing let me start with just this case can that i guess she can but absolutely not all right now if you can't on the system for doing that you're punishing her because she went on the internet then we could quibble with that but my point is i'm told by my law clerks that among certain two populations a certain large percentage of the population how much you curse  is a badge of honor that would surprise many parents however if it is true where do we tour the mine with respect to it targeting a school kids basically talk to their classmates most of their conversation is about school most of their exchanges have to do with their perceptions of the authoritarian h their teachers and others and why isn't this any different than just that the coach of this team took personal offense she spent a few minutes talking to students reporting this incident how is that a substantial disruption number one and how is this the nature of the speech such that it intends to provoke disrespect when she put it to a page that was supposed to disappear and it was only a classmate taking a snapshot who showed it to anybody those where i'm not impressed with the snapshot the feds snatch at the best she could do the same thing to a one thousand people say who has disappeared and i'm going to do this every night to my coaches they don't like it it's disrespectful my teammates are afraid of me i don't really care and the answer is because she's a cheerleader and it's an extracurricular program where she consented to an extra degree of regulation because she's a school ambassador is a self contained program that teaches not just teamwork respect for coaches counselor knows that's the school's ban  the sudden it mattered if she says it from the school parking lot and all the sudden the school could look at it apply tanker and we would be having the same conversation in a supreme court case but the fact she says it at the cocoa hut shouldn't matter into the analysis justice  regulation of political or reg or regulation of religious speech but i'll just give you two cases one where there was a ban on shirts saying we are not criminals to protest an immigration bill another shirt saying homosexuality is a sin and in both cases the courts said tanker allows the school to say that you shouldn't wear those kinds of things to school the you do you think that's clearly wrong in way is that the school thinks it's going to cause disruption that the school can ban those if the school is right about that that you know where where where those symbols are speech will cause severe disruption that the school can say no you can't bring your confederate flag to school tomorrow i don't know i think may be actual opposite is true if you look at the school handbook that we cite and in new york to have a because they bang the leading case on it is katie will be in the school and less as that fact opinion says and it all of the confederate flag say when it is used in context to terrorize a student a particular student right but it can just be w can so the difference is when we talk about disruptive it's a misnomer you cannot ban t shirts and symbols because people are offended or they threaten to riot now you can in context and gang fights and student walkouts you have very disruptive volatile environment in the schools so none of this applies to did anything to do with the question presented but so is so so so it is a major disruption toast with respect to political and religious speech as well it is a major disruption test that takes out the word just because students are offended and feelings are hurt and you're very angry about the speech or understand offense isn't enough but if there's a major disruption  better does it make a difference in this case involved in extracurricular activity yes with respect to the application of change or because of what i said about the goals and you can affect and destroy a program without affecting the school at large so here this student was not in any way there was that disciplinary action taken with respect to the school she was suspended from the cheer team and i think that is the other side issue she could have even been asked to write an apology or s you say and i think helpful for you the context here is a team and a coach not the school more generally but as a judge one and maybe as a coach and a parent too it seems like  maybe a bit of a overreaction by the coach so my reaction when i saw it read this she's competitive she cares she blogs seem like millions of other kids have when they're disappointed about being cut from a high school team or not being in the starting line up or not make an all league and just by way of comparison a and to show how much it means to people you know are you with the greatest basketball player of all times inducted into the hall of fame in two thousand nine and gives a speech and what does he talk about he talks about getting caught up as a software from the varsity team he wasn't joking he was critical of thirty years later it's still it's still bothered him and i think that's just matter of how much it means to kids to make a high school team that is so important in their lives and coaches sweat sending got to coaches to have to cut a kid who's on the bubble and good coaches understand the importance and they understand the emotions so many what bothers me want to read all this is that it didn't seem like the punishment was tailored to the offense a given what i just said about how important it is and you know how much it means to the kids i mean a year suspension from the team just seems excessive to me but how does have stayed in the st amendment doctrine or doesn't fit in at all in the case like this but i don't think it does  and there is a line that could always have to have coaches have to know their team and know what works and they have to act in the best interest of all to make a team that for defense and one of the things you learn in the moment in the moment you know that kid going to be upset and he you know you you you recognize that i'm not saying this is justified necessarily amount but but a year seems like a lark i mean again and then you're going to be  business i agree that's the problem i agree so you know so the do on the legal issue the do no harm and i think legally speaking you know what we should try to do no harm here that your approach should be to just say the teacher standard think about the case on the following way you know that high school students enjoy the same free speech rights as everyone else to acknowledge that in the context of this once you cross the schoolhouse gate those rights are somewhat reduced because of the school environment and the need to control and avoid substantial disruption but they're not last all together but that nothing and suggests itself that it applies outside of the school environment and so what you're asking us to do is to extend the school's authority that tinker acknowledges outside of the school environment and i think you have good policy reasons for doing that you know i think harassment bullying and i think threats of violence against the school and cheating are all things because you know you point out that the other side's tasks are proposed test has it's problems at the edges because of the internet and remote learning and all of that but your three part test certainly has its own issues you know it's not going to be easy to apply and i think a lot of the questions that you've gotten today show a concern including in this case that schools abuse this authority and that they punish things that maybe don't cost substantially disruption or political speech or religious speech that they shouldn't or you know i think you've heard a lot of skepticism about whether the speech at issue in this case actually cause substantial disruption so i guess my concern is if we have two tests being offered are on offer neither one  going to be easy to apply in all cases they'll both have hard cases which one we apply which one is the more protective a speech and let me ask you this insofar as the policy concerns go nothing in the st amendment prohibits soft discipline right like in this case the cheerleader coming to school and being told rather than being kicked off the team and punished being told where where the snap chat this is not good for team cohesion this is not respectful of your coaches if we see any of this kind of behavior on the field or at sorry ok my time is up thanks and i think this goes to just a fair question your choices between the familiar tinker standard that is applied to social media over the last twenty years respondents are going to regulate off campus speech but they send schools into completely violations of school rules invites more suppression they unfamiliar rules don't work when student welfare is on the line all this court made for whole is that tinker is not subject to a territorial switch under responded to you it would not have mattered and coaches every night throughout the season on twelve different social media platforms students should be able to place their speech off limits just by stepping off campus evident tendency to disrupt the functioning of a school program that depends on it as it is intended to instill values of team building and mutual support in situations like these school officials should be able to intervene to protect the interests of other team members  rigid geographic approach isn't particularly on the sound in the context of online speech since there is no meaningful causal link between the place from which it online communication is set and the likelihood that it will disrupt school operations i welcome the court friends are also their classmates and does that mean that anything that they generally send out directed at their friends has to be considered that it's directed at the school i mean st we would say no even for purposes of the  simply means that the school should have the opportunity to make the showing that the speech is likely to cause substantial disruption of school operations what about speech political speech then involves the school  you know opposing the school referendum because mr jones is a terrible teacher this do you categorize that as political speech which is off limits or speech directed at the school which can be regulated i mean it's a little bit of both of us that says we oppose the school run referendum that is very similar to the speech that was at issue in pickering the similar case about the rights of public employees and the court said in that case because there was no close working relationship between the teacher and the school board there was no likelihood that this with the truck or the place operations the part that says ms jones is a terrible teacher that might take it over the line into school speech but a single statement like that wouldn't in our view have the capacity to disrupt school operation to if there was a continuing ongoing online campaign of virtual harassment or intense disparaging of business jones or miss jones that might be a different situation but a single negative comment wouldn't as justice cavanagh alluded to as opposed to general rules that apply to the school population is there a difference in how we should treat team members versus just students yes i think there is and if i could say something about what comment the justice cabin on made in the st part of the argument i think there are there is in some sense an intuition that people have that the punishment didn't fit the crime in the sense that the suspension was very severe but there's another sense in which the punishment did the crime and that is the l was suspended from the cheerleading squad not from school if the school had suspended her from school that would have sent the message that this was considered to be unacceptable speech from any student and that would have been a very difficult showing to make but the sanction that was actually imposed said the message that this was unexpected up of all speech from a member of the team and i think it's it's not limited to the school setting or the team setting but people who participated in projects or organizations that have as part of their raison d'tre cooperation team spirit mutual support they may have to accept limitations on their speech that couldn't be imposed on in the workplace generally for example if i well let me let me ask let me squeeze in one other question real quick  when we talk about material disruption as a basis for preventing for disciplining students who engage in certain speeches or conduct can you also localize that to the team so that they have a team member disrupt the team that it's ok to discipline that to a member even though you would normally do it discipline that person as a member of the student body yes absolutely and i think it would it would be impossible to run sports teams at public high schools or for that matter public universities if that were not the case that it happens all the time that cheerleaders are student athletes will do things that disrupt the operations of the team but don't have any larger effect on the school as a whole at least so long as the discipline is limited to exclusion from the team or suspension of from the team that's is an example we can't go beyond that look at the record and then decide well the other is everyone seems to want some rule and the rule i think might be take tinker as i today which it doesn't as if you'd said school you do have some authority where there's a substantial injury to this rupture in the class or somebody is going to be hurt in that school and i would add but remember it's outside the school and that's primarily the demain of the parents and even when it's inside the school you're not a school master  e be careful ok i can say something like well what should i do i think the three or four things i would say are st no per se rule that off campus speech is categorically exempt drama school regulation nd with respect to online speech in particular the location from which the post is set is more or less irrelevant the likelihood that it would cause disruption stirred any school can permissibly concluded as in the teen concept the context that particular speech will disrupt the operations of a particular school program even if it doesn't disrupt the operations of the school as a whole and th in determining what counts as substantial disruption we should look to the purposes of the program and here the coach testified  a thirty two that part of the purpose of cheerleading was to teach team building skills that students would take with them to later live team cohesion was not simply a means to some other end it was one of the objectives of the program and as i say reasonable people could differ about whether this isolated stats would likely have the effect of disrupting team chemistry but the rd service analytical approach would apply equally in a situation where b l had said repeated stabs disparaging the coach disparaging the team where absolutely the predictable effect would be a breakdown and team morale justice alito suppose a student says something outside of school that relates to an important  subject like politics religion morality and centric cetra makes no reference to the school or to a teacher or student but the remark so some offensive that they will predictably cause controversy within the school and could distract the students from the educational process goes to school of any authority to discipline the student no not on our view and indeed the purpose in our analytic test of having a school speech prong is simply to provide a safe harbor to make clear that in the situation you posit where the speech off campus has no inherent connection to the school the justification for regulation that people we will be upset when the school day to day starts that simply an illegitimate justification or so important part of the test as you propose is whether the speech intentionally targets specific individuals or groups in the school community from her target means select as an object of attention or attack so does school target and individual a student or a teacher whenever it refers to the teacher or student no i don't think that that's the case and i did this as a contextual approach where you would look at the speech as a whole and ask is this predominantly a comment about an individual student or is  predominantly a con comment about a social issue but the other thing i would stress is even if it in a particular instance you get past the screen and say this is school speech that doesn't get the school home schooled all they want troubles me is that what you just proposed is a very nebulous line and i'm quite concerned about the effect of this on on freedom of speech i think we need clear lines can you clarify can you give me anything firmer than what you just sa i guess the two things i would say are st even in cases where we are applying to anchor you should not just look to kind of the likelihood that disruption will result we should you should employ concepts like proximate cause to determine but one could say that about any extra curricular activity that there is a team spirit of some sort involved in science lab work in after school science lab work in forensic speech writing or arguing there isn't a snap to school activity we air the spirit of that activity couldn't be perceived as being impacted by what people find is unpopular so let's get to black lives matter t shirt how about if  confederate flag how about if students in any after school activity want to wear those t shirts when would you say that the school could ban that i would say not at all but at least not on the team building concept on concept so why that is simply a case in which the right bridge speech rights of the students would be paramount that is it is possible in theory to imagine a team in which almost all the members support a particular political candidate and to some degree the presence of a teammate who support the opposing political candidate is going to be a source of argumentation but that doesn't strike  point yes i mean it certainly could be the case that if people were kind of operating in close quarters and this pattern of tension was of a stablished that that might justify some form of idea is even that in the adult context though we don't usually look at the reaction of the speaker there are some forms of speech that seem an intentionally provocative justice kagan mr stewart speech in this case speech line but it's not entirely determined so that means really everything that disrupt team chemistry and i give you a few hypotheticals and you just tell me school speech or not school speech and let's just assume that all of these cause substantial disruption ok student emails his classmates the answer to the geometry homework every day after school to school to school age still an email says classmates that they should all skip school tomorrow for an impromptu senior skip day school speech student e mails that they should refuse to do any work for english class assessment of the school as a whole and as i was saying earlier the principal point of our school speech prong is to provide a safe harbor for secure shows where a student engages in very inflammatory office off campus speech that has no  only thing i would emphasize that i don't think is inconsistent with the petition or the presentation is that in the context of on campus speech the courts have applied a concept of quasi fighting words where taking into account the relative immaturity of the school audience and the fact that students have are a captive audience the school the courts have allowed school of the word used to crack down on of a narrow range of speech that couldn't be punished outside the school but is particularly likely to cause a disturbance in the school environment with with small caviar i would agree with but stationers argument that in general disagreement even strong disagreement by the rest of the students with even on campus speech is not a basis for regulation and then if you could just address more broadly the the the thrust of the argument from the other side which is that there's some irony in the fact that as avenues for expression of increased for all of us through the internet this actually leads to more regulation of it by schools and that the authority for schools as in local prentiss grows and reduces the room for parental control and supervision i think that the two things i'd say are that the internet isn't an extra option people still do have the option i mean students in high school still have the option of doing people what people did in my day that is express their views to their friends and classmates at parties social gatherings off campus there is no requirement that everything the student thinks and wants to communicate has to be communicated to the broadest possible audience but i think the flip side is off campus speech has a much greater tendency now than it did then to affect the operations of the school simply because it can be made available to a vast audience not with respect with different but a lot of online speech will literally occur appear on students phones when they're back in class and at the next school day so i don't think it would be untoward for the court to take account so i just want to get your reaction if we just simply said the st amendment does not categorically prohibit public schools from disciplining students for speech that occurs off campus period it may matter that the analysis here involves some of this situation here involves a team not just the school more broadly period remained is that enough i think that would be you know it would probably be helpful to say with respect to online speech in particular the location of from which the speech was posted it is ordinarily going to have no significant a bet on the likelihood that it will cause substantial disruption but were we entirely agree that the court shouldn't be writing a treatise and we particularly agree that this is not the occasion for the court to try to decide how the close tases involving in a school speech ought to be dealt with and then our think you mentioned this from the  that the link of the suspension doesn't factor into the st amendment analysis that might conceivably be the basis for a due process claim as i indicated earlier i do think the fact that the whole was suspended from the cheerleading team rather than from school is significant this would be a money order case for the school with the always been suspended from school entirely because that punishment would rest on the idea that no member of the student body could acceptably have said this and that would be him but harder case what made the speech objectionable was that it was coming from inside the team just as berger says so and i want to go back to justice kagan is hypothetical about sharing the answers to the geometry homework after class you said that would be school a speech do you think it speech to pass on the answer k yes i think it would be it would be speech what about threats t speech and i think it is important in the school context that you could have if you had a student who in his off campus post was trying to cultivate a vaguely menacing persona and was careful not to say anything that rose to the level of a true threat but that it was still intended to put his audience and figure that's the sort of thing that a school ought to be able to regulate even though the kind of thing that the authorities can regulate if there is someone who is discovered online  threatening the school or menacing the school and seeming like a risk right i mean begin to get the communication of rose to the level of a true threat something that could be punished under criminal or civil law even if an adult did it yes that would be blanket waiver and so for instance if b l had been suspended from the cheerleading team because the coach disagreed with her political views that would be impermissible that would be a clear violation even though the only site action was removal from the  extracurricular and it would be no different at the school to try to extract a waiver in advance of the right to engage in speech that had no one here a connection to the school or the team thank you to wrap it up mr stewart thank you mr chief justice we've been discussing the school speech cases as as though they were a doctrinal island but i think it is worth pointing out that school speech is only one context in which participants in government programs tend be made to accept speech restrictions that couldn't be imposed on the general public so like for example posted a message online that tracked the text of b l snap but instead of school softball and she or i put the o j law and the supreme court that would be constitutionally protected speech but the o j as my employer could certainly take the position that i was inconsistent what my job as a d o j attorney and that would rest in part on the fact that my employment at d o j is voluntary on my part but it would also rest on the fact that communications like that would have a much greater destructive tendency coming from within the department then from the outside and the same principle applies here thank you thank you because listeners objected his message to court announced a narrow exception to those principles it allows school officials to punish speech based on its content if listeners object or might object when disruptive fashion limited to school supervised or school sanctioned setting the school and school speech cases are called that for a reason if already they recognize is justified by and limited to the special characteristics of the school environment so schools can prohibit pro drug messages at school but not elsewhere they can ban profanity at school but not at home some too they can punish destructive speech at school but no a convenience store on the weekend expanding taker will transform a limited exception into a two hundred and forty seven rule that would help end the st amendment's better on principle and would require students to effectively carry the school house on their backs in terms of speech rights everywhere they go and would also directly interfere with parents fundamental rights to raise their children a father shouldn't have to worry that if he brings his daughter to a black matter protest about mistreatment of a black student at school and she posts a photo on facebook she might be suspended based on potential disruption after school b l was punished for merely expressing frustration with a four letter word to friends outside of school on a weekend or message may seem trivial but for young people the ability to voice their emotions to friends without fear of school censorship may be the most important  welcome the court's questions mr coleman sharp line i think you're trying to draw between on campus and on campus how does that fit with modern technology i mean it's it's it's a text or a snap that you send you send from the park and it's read in the cafeteria is is that off campus or or on campus so if you the test that this court applied more sources frederick which is if you are under the school's supervision or sanction the school has the authority that the school speech cases get and if they're outside of the school supervision or sanction then you for the same st amendment rights apply to you as apply to everybody else well the internet but they're not doesn't change that you're already you know if anything internet underscores the importance of assuring that kids outside of school have the right to speak freely because that's where kids speak they speak to their friends they share their most intimate thoughts on the internet with their friends they have any time they do that  and that means that somebody in school at some point might leave it the school can therefore regulate it if it's if it's a swear word or if it if it's disruptive or if or people object to it at school in a way that causes problems for the school then kids won't have free speech period that they will essentially be carrying a school house with them wherever they go it was they were essentially we're both tanker you say in your your your and at that point i suddenly think well we're just back in the sort of multiplicity of factors and nobody can tell quite exactly where any clear lines are what do you mean by adjusted for use in cont different from what's threatened to an adult what is harassing to a twelve year old girl is going to be different from what's harassing to a twenty five year old so those kinds of adjustments i think the law already recognizes those sorts of adjustments our point is you don't need the blunt instrument of tinker to deal with the problems of off campus behavior that might have an effect in school because the st amendment does he stand in the way it permits regulation of threats it permits regulation of bullying harassment cheating i long as both are carefully confined by the existing st amendment doctrine i think you said the blunt interest instrument of tinker i'm not sure it's blunt i mean it it we had trouble so far i think in figuring out exactly how it applies in in the present situation but just so i understand no matter how disruptive a particular speech activity off campus or i gather you know on a snap chat is to the school school it has no choice but to tolerate that because you can't take any action against with equal access to education they can take action consistent with the st amendment if it is bullying that is to vera pervasive enough to interfere with access to education they can take action consistent with the st amendment if it is aiding or abetting cheating they can take action consistent with the st month of the simple rule is when you're inside the school when or when you are under the school's supervision the school has broad authority based on disruption alone but outside of the school outside of the school supervision the st amendment governs on the school has the same authority that the city would have with respect to regulating speech that is not under its supervision but that doesn't mean it can't take action it just means it has to the internet and social media and you could send the exact same messages that could cause problems for your local seven hundred and eleven or you could send to classmates who happened to be in class or you could send it over the weekend but it still has a permanence that would certainly allow it to be used in a class so i don't know how you locate the condo in school versus out of permitted to ban cell phones etc in school and indeed my motto i high school does precisely that so the question is is the speaker under the supervision of the school and if the speaker is on the supervision of a school you can stop him from swearing if the speaker is under the supervision of the school you can stop them from publishing an article about teen pregnancy but if the speaker is at home on the weekend you can't stop her from publishing an article about teen pregnancy and you can't stop her from scaring her parents could and it's her parents job to regulate not the school's job to have that at that location so if the if the speaker's sen an e mail that is open and sends an e mail over the weekend but is open on monday morning and math class as far as you're concerned the speaker's not under the supervision of school of athletes or protests appearance and after school programs as just sort of minor pointed out is there any difference between that organization after school organization or activity regulating a student conduct versus the school regulating the overall student body population so i think with respect to whether tinker should apply no that is take or should apply in school supervised and sh settings which would include a practice or a game etc on the bus to the game and not when a person is sitting in a convenience store on the weekend out of season but i do think there's a step or question just thomas which is independent of tinker and and the court of appeals of justice as a separate question after it decided to think or doesn't apply it didn't and the decision then went on and had a full separate section on whether the school can impose conditions on voluntary participation the activity and whether she violated those conditions and it looked at that question which is a separate question and it found that she didn't violate any of the conditions that were imposed upon her and that was the end of the matter and the petitioners did not seek appeal in this court of that part of the question so i do think there's a serious question of what sorts of conditions canada can a team impose on voluntary participation in that activity but that question is not posed here because it's not part of the question presented i was not part of the question presented because they lost on that below the court found she didn't violate any of the rules that she agreed to follow and they didn't appeal silence the speaker thank you just prior thank you for the difficulty i have already mentioned a few years ago a superintendent of schools i think in san francisco said you know schools have changed a lot of public schools since when i went there he said today we don't just teach classical subjects we're there to help the child have adequate health in many cases to see that he's adequately fed in quite a few cases we become a caretaker and we don't want to send the moment mediately because there's nobody home and we have to plan as after school activities there are  didn't used to be thought of as within the purview of the public school today in many places they are add to that the internet and the internet not just listening to teachers but also doing homework and also writing papers sometimes vaguely defined and sometimes and sometimes the how do i get a standard out of that i'm frightened to death of writing a standard and tinker after all doesn't really write a standard it just says you can't regulate school unless it's substantially disrupts or hurt somebody else it doesn't say if it does it you can do anything you want if you still must some kind of test like proportionality or something else and i can mention that often outside of school it's the parent's job not the teachers if by the way there are parents in the house etc and i could mention the differences and say take those into account well i do not see how to go beyond that and any suggestions you have will be welcome to our justice par i think it's important that there be clear lines that's why  the rd circuit issued the decision it did to make sure that there were clear lines within the context of school supervision whether it's an afterschool program whether it's a class trip whether it's in the classroom tinkler applies and take or doesn't mean that the school can shut down a speaker if that speaker has got those words are going to lead to disruption period whether it's political whether it's religious that's that's the state of the law in in in in the cases below i don't know where the other side gets the exception for political or religious speech it just doesn't exist based on the case law but outside of school the priority is not to give the school discretion to regulate kids speech it's to protect people's freedom of speech outside of school so our our line is is i think quite simple in school you can apply take out of school you can't what is out mean means you can't punish out of school speech because  might be disrupted by the message it means you can regulate threats bullying harassment and cheating but it says that when you're doing that for out of school conduct you follow the same rules that everybody else follows with you know adjusting for the fact that it's kids that are involved but what we have been is a tailored approach which deals with the specific problems at issue rather than a sledgehammer approach which says we're not going to try to define bullying or harassment are cheating or threats we just going to say if the school can call it disruption they can punish it even if it occurs on the weekend i think that's a very very dangerous proposition terms of young people's free speech and the court should be very clear as the rd circuit was thank you very much justice alito in the circle there is a huge gap between the broad and very important free speech issues that have been briefed and discuss this morning and the particular incident involved in this case if we're going to address the broad issues then i for one think we need clear rules that protect freedom of speech on the other hand if the court having decided to take this case wants to decide it without addressing those broad issues of course the court could dismiss the case i assume it would have an objection to that but if the court doesn't do that could the court do something along these lines say tinker applies in the school and says nothing one way or the other about what a school may or may not do to students speech outside the school we look at the particular comments made here they're made and colorful language but substantively they boil down to something like i have no respect for the school i have no respect for the chairs so i hate the school i hate the cheer squad i also hate my softball team a school can discipline a student for off campus speech that does no more than say i hate the school i am no respect for the school so you know where we're satisfied solito with the ruling in our favor and whether you dismiss as improvidently granted whether you say under no conceivable circumstance under no conceivable test is this substantial disruption standard which has no safe harbor as the government puts it for political speech or religious speech should that be applied to kids not only when they're under the school supervision and they're captive and they're more vulnerable but should you apply to cannes on the weekend in the middle of summer when they're talking to their friends on snap chat and that's when should they should this have speech rights of young people be constrained throughout their lives as much as it is constrained in school schools are areas of strict discipline they should be they have to be the kids shouldn't have to carry that asking for a clear line as the rd circuit said that that flows the really i think critically important interest outside of the school context that we protect free speech  kids the grieving space they need to be able to talk candidly and honestly to share their emotions to share their feelings even about school without fear that some administrator is going to say oh well that was disruptive or that's going to lead somebody else in school to be upset and so we are going to punish you imagine bullying and i am concerned about comments that do touch on important issues but it relates directly to a student so is there anything that a school can do about that you say i guess that they have a school at home or a party in this area  other government officials so what can other government officials do about that without violating the st amendment so there are there are bullying codes throughout the country that are generally limited to the school environment just as you know sexual harassment is generally limited to the employment in educational context so it may be a context specific concept but i think what schools can do is they can to address the question of you know how you define buoying because we'll just call it destruction and the school can regulate it wherever it happens and that makes no distinction between what's mean and what is boeing and they are here they're harder truth threats we even have definitions of what constitutes disc sexual harassment the level at which speech has to arrive to meet those standards is very very high and i'm dubious that most of the contact that teenagers engage in would fit any of our traditional categories so let's talk about harassment ok common episode i think i read it in a newspaper at a young girl is subjected to each time she goes out of the house whether she's in the playground after school playground or walking to school with a group of classmates walking by and saying you're so ugly why are you even alive that's not a true threat they're not threatening her with any bodily harm it is  not harassment if that's all it is they're just speaking so and they're not interfering with her movement to or from school why that would be the kind of situation that i don't see a st amendment category fitting so under your that theory of this case would the school be powerless absolutely not but the school would be permitted to regulate around there's a lot of conduct that comes to the edge you're now asking schools to determine what is constitutional in terms of misbehavior by students that they can attempt to control or not control we are within the school context all they have to find is that if disruptive it can be a one scene can be true or teasing a student next to them and the school can come in because it's disruptive period and of end of story and that's what you're saying they can't do it if this is that's happening outside the school that's right that's right because outside of the school the school school doesn't exercise supervisory authority the parents do outside the school the child is out of the protection of that it's parent inside the school it doesn't get inside the school bus with the child is captive outside the school is not and that doesn't mean you can't doesn't go far far enough away but it says we we want the highest i must earn the right to represent the school by content in such a way that the image of the of the school district would not be tarnished in any way our cheerleaders or team members using foul language on social media or at any school function would be  question presented because they did not petition from the determination that she did in fact violate those rules she spoke out of season she did not speak out event but yes i think the teams have quite a bit of leeway in terms of imposing conditions on that it says here the negative information rule of the cheerleading rules provided there will be no toleration of any negative information regarding cheerleading cheerleaders or ph or coaches placed on the internet why isn't what your client did a violate a clear violation of that part of the code the record of appeal found that there was no information whatsoever in what she presented and again the protesters did not appeal that determination tinker as a decision about what's necessary for a school's learning environment and it might be that student speech that occurs outside of school is sometimes going to cause fundamental problems disruption of the school's learning environment and i guess then the question is why we shouldn't acknowledge that and allow a school to deal with it not a geographic test it's a supervised supervision test the test of this court is applied in all the school speech cases and i think there's two reasons the st is to take or is an exception to the bedrock principle that you can't punish the speaker because the listeners objected even if they object disruptively if you take away the line between what happens under school supervision and what happens outside you have to let you have time in the exception into the rule for fifteen million public high school students the nd baseman is that this court's school speech cases are contrary to that notion the price the article about teen pregnancy that this court said in hazelwood could be censored because it was in a school supervised newspaper if the student won home and published the same teen pregnancy article on her own private blog it would have the same concerns the same effect concerns they were about privacy of other students and yet the school couldn't regulated swearin or or bong hits for jesus live on us for jesus sign in terms of promoting drug use would have the same effect if it was put out of the kid's bedroom window while the students walked by on their way to school or put on his facebook page to milton curry clear you can't i mean i mean those are some easy cases but you've also been asked about bullying cases harassment cases and you've tended to say well sure don't don't worry you can deal with that because there may be constitutional code and use that are anti bullying and i have asked men to and they may indeed but i think we have a general sense that schools have more latitude over this kind of speech then than other government officials so i'll just give me one example suppose that there are boys on a school who  have the website and rank or the girls in the school on matters of appearance in and such things or maybe talk about their sexual activities and we want to put people in jail for that you know outside of a school test but it seems as though a school should be able to deal with it why not i think a school should be able to deal with that and i think that's what both laws are actually reflect that intuition there's there's no prohibition on both generally between adults were listening to this i mean i'm just stipulating that there are some categories of speech that we cannot punish outside the school kind of context and ask you if you can't imagine cases where even though we couldn't punish it outside the school context and i think mine is a good example you can't you can't put people in jail for commenting on other people's appearance but shouldn't a school be able to deal with it mean the st amendment goes well you still have to assess if it we're only tailored or does it punish too much speech and that question would could well be affected by the school environment could well be affected by the fact that kids are involved but you should ask that question and decide that question with respect to a particular problem like bowie or harassment rather than adopt a broad brush free floating disruption standard that yes it might it might reach student speech that is about upon graham as opposed to speech that is targeted as the program it would allow schools to define in an on viewable fashion what is essential to any school program suppos which i'd like to follow up with where you left off with justice kagan i'm i'm struggling to understand the delta or difference between your test and the petitioners at the end of the day with respect to off campus speech that results in a person with them on campus being denied an educational opportunity which is what but i understood your test for prof off off campus bowling to be what what is the difference between that and and  substantial disruption on campus test i think the difference i think there's really two basic differences just of course it's the st is that their test is disruption covers anything that anybody says off campus that might have an effect on campus so we took you know when you let me just tell that's where i mean i'm starting up and let me just pause here and say rather than substantial disruption you would say it has to disrupt an individual's educational consistent with the st amendment where it is defined as in a personal aggression so severe or pervasive as to interfere with access to education all of that is critical to that definition not just had an effect on the school where is there a test is just had an effect on a school and therefore their test when encompass someone who puts up a sign that says blue lives matter more or somebody who criticizes the coach for his a cli abusing clare's or somebody who are going on as an off campus protest at the school's coded policies all of those things could be disruptive but they wouldn't be bullying they wouldn't be harassment they wouldn't be threats and under our rule what they would put to talk about why wouldn't they be uk i don't think so just of course i putting up a sign that says blue eyes modern more is not bullying under any reasonable definition nor is whistle blowing about a coach is physical abuse or calling for a protest of a school's comint policies but all of those things could be disruptive in the school and under their test under their test they can veil for punish the speaker for expressing those those messages the other difference between our test and their test is that our test would require terror full definitions of bullying harassment and the like rather than just waving your hands colleague and disruption and going away and the problem with that is then you're not distinguish between ordinary mean comments or teasing and bullying and harassment in this court in davis and justice alito in the fax decision said you have to make those distinctions if you're going to be consistent with the st one but you would agree if i understand it so that there could be some school specific st amendment regulations right i mean it's just a nd point that you are and then let me ask you just to turn to another topic and back to the facts of this case  why doesn't it make a difference to the the speech here was addressed by and in the context of an extracurricular activity and that the standards there may be different from higher than what specific if we're going to write a veil of road of writing a narrow opinion right so to the specific i think there are there are serious questions about sort of what sorts of because extracurriculars of voluntary schools can  require students to agree to certain kinds of conditions on participation in the program as long as they're set out in advance and consistent with the st amendment and so for example i think a school could say if you're going to play on our team well it does with if if if if the justification for the leg elation is when voluntary participation and agreement by the person to a certain set of conditions that would otherwise not be permissible a permissible basis for her expulsion from the team and then they looked at it and they found she didn't actually violate any of those will occur again petitioners did not appeal on that question thank you justice cavanaugh thank you chief justice good morning mr c e obviously think it's unfortunate this spiraled this case the way it did and i completely understand the young woman's reaction to being upset with  decision as i mentioned to misapply and i think that's entirely typical and widespread for decades and decades one when kids are disappointed by that something like that and then the coaches reaction you know on seems like an excessive sanction but we're not there and we don't know all the circumstances and don't want to nd guess too much for i guess all star were just i was discussing with you it just seems entirely different to be talking about a team and not a school and i'm just not sure and i'm going to ask follow up questions about this and i'm really trying to figure out the practical difference for course in the wake of this case between if we adopt your test and miss blast tests so team and then move on to that if you can our test is the teams are disruption standard applies within the school supervised settings not outside so with respect attains if you're on the field if you're out of practice if you're i think game if you're on the way to the game or if you're you know then you are subject to  affects that the tinkerer analysis but there is i think a separate independent question which is what sorts of conditions can a school impose on a person if they join say the football team or the pottery those conditions might be different and they were there and i think we will conditions are going to be permissible in here they set forth some conditions she agreed to abide by those conditions and she didn't follow it i do as conditions this was this happened  season she did not she didn't do anything you know while she was in her chair later uniform she did not post post any negative information on the internet she basically expressed her frustration as i'm sure you  did when you had had disappointing games and as i did when i had disappointing races and that didn't violate any of the rules and that's the end of the matter because they have not sought any with you about so in a separate case you might take up the racial epithet about the culture i think if they have a rule that says you can't demean other players or the coach you can't engage in insubordinate speech to the coach or about the coach then they could punish or if they don't have a role they could bring here and they can say that is totally again they're off the table so so you can definitely deal with it in a way that maintains the authority of the coach and the unity of the team but what if the justification for additional requirements on team involvement is that you have chosen to join the team and therefore you can be asked to sacrifice some of your st amendment rights in advance well then you have to be told what your what your socket and i just want to pick up on just this broader and justice alito because maybe i don't want to be misunderstood on what i'm saying i think you can answer the question presented here very clearly without writing a treatise and that's the point i was trying to make and the question presented is just one or tinker applies off campus we can answer that yes or no if we answer yes obviously that will answer the question resent if we answer no here's to the point for you you still have all these exceptions that allow as i understand it the st amendment that mean that the st amendment does not categorically prohibit public schools from disappointing students for speech that occurs off campus so i think that's the point the justice course which is making you just it differently than this flag she says take her applies off campus you say take her doesn't apply off campus but by the way the st amendment still allows the schools to regulate speech that occurs off campus in a number of circumstances i'm just wondering whether that's worth  approach let's talk about the harassment example that you were discussing with justice sotomayor tinker doesn't apply off campus and say you know that we're in that world and you say that the school could much like a city official from understanding this correctly prohibit harassment that rises to the level of interference with another student's educational opportunities and i assume that would be judged if this if the school adopted it what would you  bullying policies and there are many many such policies and i argue is those are constitutional to let me ask you about the test of the policy comes from the school so the school adopts a policy say about bullying and then it gets actually graphic images on his way home from school that subject to a st amendment challenge and what you're saying when there's a compelling state interest but it's narrowly tailored as that which envisioning content discrimination  our our view is just as the sexual harassment ball with respect to hostile work environment is permissible in terms of prohibiting severe or pervasive harassment that interferes with equal access to the employment place so to a bullying laws that prohibit severe pervasive interpersonal aggression sufficient to interfere with access to education would be constitutional i think it could be constitutional under that given the as the court this court suggested in our interview with respect to sexual harassment or it would be narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest but if you define bullying as some of the code to do as anything that would cause emotional harm you know environment and what constitutes the school environment what would be wrong with saying that the school environment exists when the student is relating it not just a supervisor and i mean that's narrow what about when the student is relating to the school and the student's capacity as a student so if the student is directly communicating with the school sending emails to the school sending e mails to a teacher at the teacher's school in mail account would those be within the school environment and your definition yes because you would be classmates and you do it on the weekends you're not subjecting yourself to the school's jurisdiction and you shouldn't be treated as if you're in school thank you mr cole thank you everyone agrees off campus bullying harassment and threats properly defined can be regulated the difference between the other side's pasts and ours is this ours with protect political speech whistle blowing ours would provide breathing room for free speech outside school there's one empowers school officials to monitor everything students say to each other anywhere and ours would require clear definitions of off campus bullying and harassment consistent with st amendment principles there's would call it destruction and dispense with further definition the fact that petitioner claims that composure be al for a momentary expression of frustration on a weekend out of school and out of season shows how sweeping its approach is its rule with teach students they can never speak candidly with their friends without worrying that a school official will deem their views potentially disruptive and suspend them or otherwise punish them that is exactly the wrong lesson to teach thank you there's some sort of twilight zone going on when the head of the a c l u says that schools allow heckler's veto punishment for whistleblowing any kind of reporting any kind of criticism all that matters is someone is offended well we're going to assume changers out of control on campus but we will leave open teasin on schools and complete chaos as to what their test allows under their view all fifty states to find bowling in terms of take or you have the same email chain that would toggle on and off campus and you would have the change or a test applying it when there's some on campus speech and i don't know what applies i think mr cole said it's the tanker test but he's afraid to use the tinkle word because it's scary and it shouldn't be you're much better off cleaning this doctrine up justice kagan you had amazing questions about school speech remember our test of the audience have to be the school so all of your speech if it's to the press the police your pastor your family e to the parents of those other kids to have schools fumbling around is why i don't know what the supplies before we had a change are part of the threats or on campus far off it was on the internet let's look at where she corrected it maybe she was to and from now it's moved to the school supervision madness confusion and chaos please don't do this to schools mr cole said you can prevent swearing to and from school that you're in the dad minivan at school supervision under their view no one thinks frazier applies there and