Educators must take threats of school violence seriously. A recent lawsuit filed against Columbine School officials alleges school officials knew of Harris' and Klebold's violent tendencies through their school work. The lawsuit alleges that videotapes made in class by the shooters gave prior warnings of threats of violence including one videotape which portrayed an attack on the school. However, student speech which causes substantial disruption or material interference with school activities or invades the rights of others is not protected. The Tinker case has since been applied in cases pertaining to different types of independent student speech including student demonstrations, symbols, and unofficial newspapers.
School districts have more control over student curricular speech than student independent speech.
There are few cases involving 1st Amendment challenges by students who are disciplined due to making threats at school and most of these cases have occurred after the Columbine shooting. So far, there have been no Missouri cases decided which deal with this issue. In Lovell, a high school student was shuffled back and forth between school administrative offices and the counselor's office for several hours while making changes in her class schedule. Her final stop was at the counselor's office where the approved changes were to be entered into the school's computer system. However, the counselor noted as she entered the changes that some of the student's approved courses were already full.