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Page Number: 37

4 

MAHANOY AREA SCHOOL DIST. v. B. L. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

speech as “acts of misbehavior”); Stockwell 236–238 (apply-
ing the Lander rule to “[t]he conduct of pupils”); Morse, 551 
U. S.,  at  419  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring)  (“speech  rules  and
other  school  rules  were  treated  identically”).    Citing 
Lander, schools justified regulating truancy because of its
proximate tendency to harm schools.  As the Missouri Su-
preme Court put it, although “[t]ruancy is an act committed
out  of  the  school,”  schools  could  regulate  it  because  of  its 
“subversive” effects on the “good order and discipline of the 
school.”  Deskins v. Gose, 85 Mo. 485, 488–489 (1885); see 
also Burdick v. Babcock, 31 Iowa 562, 565, 567 (1871) (“If 
the effects of acts done out of school-hours reach within the 
schoolroom during school hours and are detrimental to good 
order and the best interest of the pupils, it is evident that 
such acts may be forbidden”). 

Some  courts  made  statements  that,  if  read  in  isolation, 
could suggest that schools had no authority at all to regu-
late  off-campus  speech.    E.g.,  Dritt  v.  Snodgrass,  66  Mo. 
286, 297 (1877) (Norton, J., joined by a majority of the court, 
concurring) (“neither the teacher nor directors have the au-
thority to follow [a student home], and govern his conduct 
while under the parental eye” because that would “super-
sede entirely parental authority”).  But, these courts made 
it clear that the rule against regulating off-campus speech
applied only when that speech was “nowise connected with 
the  management  or  successful  operation  of  the  school.” 
King  v.  Jefferson  City  School  Bd.,  71  Mo.  628,  630  (1880)
(distinguishing  Dritt);  accord,  Lander,  32  Vt.,  at  120–121 
(similar).  In  other  words,  they  followed  Lander:  A  school 
can regulate speech when it occurs off campus, so long as it
has a proximate tendency to harm the school, its faculty or 
students, or its programs. 

B 
If there is a good constitutional reason to depart from this
historical rule, the majority and the parties fail to identify