Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

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

5 

ALITO, J., concurring 

484 U. S., at 279 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“[T]he student 
who delivers a lewd endorsement of a student-government 
candidate  might  so  extremely  distract  an  impressionable 
high school audience as to interfere with the orderly opera-
tion of the school”). 

Because  no  school  could  operate  effectively  if  teachers
and  administrators  lacked  the  authority  to  regulate  in-
school  speech  in  these  ways,  the  Court  may  have  felt  no 
need to specify the source of this authority or to explain how 
the special rules applicable to in-school student speech fit 
into  our  broader  framework  of  free-speech  case  law.    But 
when a public school regulates what students say or write 
when they are not on school grounds and are not participat-
ing in a school program, the school has the obligation to an-
swer the question with which I began: Why should enroll-
ment  in  a  public  school  result  in  the  diminution  of  a 
student’s free-speech rights? 

The only plausible answer that comes readily to mind is
consent, either express or implied.  The theory must be that
by enrolling a child in a public school, parents consent on 
behalf  of  the  child  to  the  relinquishment  of  some  of  the 
child’s free-speech rights.

This  understanding  is  consistent  with  the  conditions  to 
which an adult would implicitly consent by enrolling in an 
adult education class run by a unit of state or local govern-
ment.  If an adult signs up for, say, a French class, the adult 
may be required to speak French, to answer the teacher’s
questions, and to comply with other rules that are imposed 
for the sake of orderly instruction.

When  it  comes  to  children,  courts  in  this  country  have
analyzed the issue of consent by adapting the common-law 
doctrine of in loco parentis.  See Morse, 551 U. S., at 413– 
416 (THOMAS, J., concurring).  Under the common law, as 
Blackstone explained, “[a father could] delegate part of his 
parental  authority  . . .  to  the  tutor  or  schoolmaster  of  his 
child; who is then in loco parentis, and has such a portion