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4 

MAHANOY AREA SCHOOL DIST. v. B. L. 

ALITO, J., concurring 

not  directly  addressed  this  question.    All  those  cases  in-
volved  either  in-school  speech  or  speech  that  was  tanta-
mount to in-school speech.  See n. 1, supra.  And in those 
cases, the Court appeared to take it for granted that “the
special characteristics of the school environment” justified
special rules.  Morse v. Frederick, 551 U. S. 393, 397, 403, 
405, 406, n. 2, 408 (2007) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted);  Hazelwood  School  Dist.  v.  Kuhlmeier,  484  U. S.  260, 
266 (1988) (internal quotation marks omitted); Tinker, 393 
U. S., at 506.   

Why the Court took this for granted is not hard to imag-
ine.  As  a  practical  matter,  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  a 
school could function if administrators and teachers could 
not regulate on-premises student speech, including by im-
posing  content-based  restrictions  in  the  classroom.    In  a 
math  class,  for  example,  the  teacher  can  insist  that  stu-
dents  talk  about  math,  not  some  other  subject.  See 
Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S., at 279 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“The 
young  polemic  who  stands  on  a  soapbox  during  calculus 
class to deliver an eloquent political diatribe interferes with
the legitimate teaching of calculus”).  In addition, when a 
teacher asks a question, the teacher must have the author-
ity to insist that the student respond to that question and 
not some other question, and a teacher must also have the
authority to speak without interruption and to demand that
students refrain from interrupting one another.  Practical 
necessity likewise dictates that teachers and school admin-
istrators  have  related  authority  with  respect  to  other  in-
school  activities  like  auditorium  programs  attended  by  a 
large audience.  See Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 
478 U. S. 675, 685 (1986) (“A high school assembly . . . is no 
place for a sexually explicit monologue directed towards an
unsuspecting  audience  of  teenage  students”);  id.,  at  689 
(Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (“In the present case,
school officials sought only to ensure that a high school as-
sembly proceed in an orderly manner”); see also Kuhlmeier,