Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

15 

ALITO, J., concurring 

held that these rights extend to speech that is couched in 
vulgar and offensive terms.  See, e.g., Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 
U. S. ___ (2019); Matal, 582 U. S. ___; Snyder v. Phelps, 562 
U. S. 443 (2011); Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15 (1971); 
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444 (1969) (per curiam).

Between  these  two  extremes  (i.e.,  off-premises  speech
that is tantamount to on-campus speech and general state-
ments made off premises on matters of public concern) lie 
the categories of off-premises student speech that appear to 
have  given  rise  to  the  most  litigation.    A  survey  of  lower 
court  cases  reveals  several  prominent  categories.    I  will 
mention some of those categories, but like the Court, I do
not attempt to set out the test to be used in judging the con-
stitutionality  of  a  public  school’s  efforts  to  regulate  such
speech.

One  group  of  cases  involves  perceived  threats  to  school 
administrators, teachers, other staff members, or students. 
Laws that apply to everyone prohibit defined categories of 
threats,18 see, e.g., 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §2706(a);19 Tex. Penal 
Code  Ann.  §22.07(a)  (West  2020),20  but  schools  have 

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18 The First Amendment permits prohibitions of “true threats,” which 
are “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious ex-
pression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular
individual or group of individuals.”  Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343, 359 
(2003). 

19 This law is commonly referred to as Pennsylvania’s “terrorist threat
statute.”    It  prohibits  “communicat[ing], either  directly  or  indirectly, a 
threat to: (1) commit any crime of violence with intent to terrorize an-
other; (2) cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly or facility of 
public  transportation;  or  (3)  otherwise  cause  serious  public  inconven-
ience, or cause terror or serious public inconvenience with reckless dis-
regard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience.” 

20 In Texas, it is a crime to “threate[n] to commit any offense involving
violence to any person or property” with specified intent, such as the in-
tent to “place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury”
or to “interrupt the occupation or use of a . . . public place.”