Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-255_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

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

3 

ALITO, J., concurring 

“ ‘ inappropriate ’ ”  or  “ ‘ hurtful ’ ”;7  public  schools  have  the
duty to teach students that freedom of speech, including un-
popular speech, is essential to our form of self-government;8 
the  Mahanoy  Area  High  School  violated  B. L.’s  First 
Amendment rights when it punished her for the messages 
she posted on her own time while away from school prem-
ises; and the judgment of the Third Circuit must therefore 
be affirmed. 

I also agree that it is not prudent for us to attempt at this
time to “set forth a broad, highly general First Amendment
rule” governing all off-premises speech.  Ante, at 6.  But in 
order to understand what the Court has held, it is helpful 
to consider the framework within which efforts to regulate
off-premises speech should be analyzed. 

II 
I start with this threshold question: Why does the First 
Amendment  ever  allow  the  free-speech  rights  of  public
school students to be restricted to a greater extent than the
rights of other juveniles who do not attend a public school? 
As the Court recognized in Tinker v. Des Moines Independ-
ent  Community  School  Dist.,  393  U. S.  503,  509  (1969),
when a public school regulates student speech, it acts as an
arm of the State in which it is located.  Suppose that B. L. 
had been enrolled in a private school and did exactly what 
she did in this case—send out vulgar and derogatory mes-
sages that focused on her school’s cheerleading squad.  The 
Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  would  have  had  no  legal 
basis  to  punish  her  and  almost  certainly  would  not  have
even tried.  So why should her status as a public school stu-
dent give the Commonwealth any greater authority to pun-
ish her speech?

Our cases involving the regulation of student speech have 

—————— 

7 Ante, at 7, 8–9. 
8 Ante, at 7–8.