Opinion ID: 1036439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: How far does a school’s authority under Fraser

Text: extend? The School District asks us to extend Fraser in at least two ways: to reach speech that is ambiguously lewd, vulgar, or profane and to reach speech on political or social issues.14 The first step is justified, but the second 14 Fraser differs from this case in a third way: Fraser involved speech at an official school assembly, whereas the School District’s bracelet ban extends to the entire school day, not just school-sponsored functions. But like other courts of appeals, we do not think that this difference matters. See, e.g., R.O. ex rel. Ochshorn v. Ithaca City Sch. Dist., 645 F.3d 533, 542 (2d Cir. 2011) (“[W]e have not interpreted Fraser as limited either to regulation of school-sponsored speech or to the spoken word.”); Chandler, 978 F.2d at 529 (concluding that restriction of vulgar, lewd, and plainly offensive speech under Fraser is not limited to speech “given at an official school assembly”); Bystrom by and through Bystrom v. Fridley High Sch., Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 14, 822 F.2d 747, 753 (8th Cir. 1987) (“It is true that [Fraser] involved a speech given before a student assembly . . . . [But] [t]his possible difference, in our view, does not amount to a legal distinction making the Bethel rule inapplicable here.”). As we explained, Fraser reflected an extension of the Court’s obscenity-to-minors jurisprudence, which permits the government to restrict 30 lewd speech to children where children are either a captive audience or the intended recipients of the speech. Children are just as much of a captive audience in the hallways, cafeteria, or locker rooms as they are in official school assemblies and classrooms. Naturally, then, we have never described a school’s authority under Fraser as being limited to official school functions and classrooms. See, e.g., J.S., 650 F.3d at 927 (“The first exception is set out in Fraser, which we interpreted to permit school officials to regulate “‘lewd,’ ‘vulgar,’ ‘indecent,’ and ‘plainly offensive’ speech in school.” (emphasis in original) (quoting Saxe, 240 F.3d at 213)). Although Justice Brennan’s concurrence and Justice Stevens’s dissent in Fraser suggested that this difference might matter, nothing in the majority opinion endorsed their distinction. See Fraser, 478 U.S. at 689 (Brennan, J., concurring) (opining that Fraser’s “speech may well have been protected had he given it in school but under different circumstances, where the school’s legitimate interests in teaching and maintaining civil public discourse were less weighty”); id. at 696 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“It seems fairly obvious that [Fraser’s] speech would be inappropriate in certain classroom and formal social settings. On the other hand, in a locker room or perhaps in a school corridor the metaphor in the speech might be regarded as rather routine comment.”). Indeed, if Fraser were so limited, then a school’s authority under Fraser would largely merge with its 31 is not.
ambiguously lewd speech only if it cannot plausibly be interpreted as commenting on a social or political matter. Although Fraser involved plainly lewd, vulgar, profane, or offensive speech that “offends for the same reasons obscenity offends,” Saxe, 240 F.3d at 213 (quoting Fraser, 478 U.S. at 685), student speech need not rise to that level to be restricted under Fraser. We conclude that schools may also categorically restrict ambiguous speech that a reasonable observer could interpret as lewd, vulgar, profane, or offensive—unless, as explained below, the speech could also plausibly be interpreted as commenting on a political or social issue. After all, Fraser made clear that “the determination of what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate properly rests with the school board.” 478 U.S. at 683. The Supreme Court’s three other student-speech cases suggest that courts should defer to a school’s decisions to restrict what a reasonable observer would interpret as lewd, vulgar, profane, or offensive. See Morse, 551 U.S. at 403 (explaining that, power to reasonably regulate school-sponsored speech under Kuhlmeier, yet we have always viewed Fraser and Kuhlmeier as separate exceptions to Tinker. See, e.g., J.S., 650 F.3d at 927. 32 under Tinker, courts determine whether school officials have “reasonably conclude[d]” that student speech will substantially disrupt the school); id. at 405 (explaining that, under Kuhlmeier, courts uphold a school’s reasonable, pedagogically related restrictions on speech that an observer could reasonably attribute to the school); id. at 422 (Alito, J., concurring) (explaining that schools may restrict student speech that could “reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use” and that could not plausibly be interpreted as commenting on a political or social issue). This makes sense. School officials know the age, maturity, and other characteristics of their students far better than judges do. Our review is restricted to a cold and distant record. And we must take into account that these same officials must often act “suddenly and unexpectedly” based on their experience. Id. at 409–10 (majority opinion); see, e.g., WalkerSerrano ex rel. Walker v. Leonard, 325 F.3d 412, 416–17 (3d Cir. 2003) (“There can be little doubt that speech appropriate for eighteen-year-old high school students is not necessarily acceptable for seven-year-old grammar school students. Human sexuality provides the most obvious example of age-sensitive matter . . . .” (citing Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683–84)); Sypniewski, 306 F.3d at 266 (“What is necessary in one school at one time will not be necessary elsewhere and at other times.”). It remains the job of judges, nonetheless, to determine whether a reasonable observer could interpret 33 student speech as lewd, profane, vulgar, or offensive. See Morse, 551 U.S. at 402 (taking the same approach with respect to the message of drug advocacy on Frederick’s banner); see also Christian Legal Soc’y Chapter of the Univ. of Cal. v. Martinez, 130 S. Ct. 2971, 2988 (2010) (“This Court is the final arbiter of the question whether a public university has exceeded constitutional constraints, and we owe no deference to universities when we consider that question.”). Whether a reasonable observer could interpret student speech as lewd, profane, vulgar, or offensive depends on the plausibility of the school’s interpretation in light of competing meanings; the context, content, and form of the speech; and the age and maturity of the students. See, e.g., Chandler, 978 F.2d at 530 (analyzing the word “scab” on buttons worn by students during a teacher strike to determine whether it was a vulgar, offensive epithet or just “common parlance” and concluding that, at the motion-to-dismiss stage, Fraser did not apply). Although this is a highly contextual inquiry, several rules apply. A reasonable observer would not adopt an acontextual interpretation, and the subjective intent of the speaker is irrelevant. See Morse, 551 U.S. at 401–02 (explaining that Frederick’s desire to appear on television “was a description of [his] motive for displaying the banner” and “not an interpretation of what the banner sa[id]”); see also Saxe, 240 F.3d at 216–17 (noting that students’ intent to offend or disrupt does not 34 satisfy Tinker). And Fraser is not a blank check to categorically restrict any speech that touches on sex or any speech that has the potential to offend. See Morse, 551 U.S. at 401, 409 (refusing to “stretch[] Fraser” so far as “to encompass any speech that could fit under some definition of ‘offensive’ and rejecting the argument that the “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” message on Frederick’s banner could be banned under Fraser, even though it “is no doubt offensive to some”); accord Eugene Volokh, May ‘Jesus Is Not a Homophobe’ T-shirt Be Banned From Public High School As ‘Indecent’ And ‘Sexual’?, The Volokh Conspiracy (Apr. 4, 2012, 3:36 PM), http://www.volokh.com/2012/04/04/may-jesus-was-not- a-homophobe-T-shirt-be-banned-from-public-highschool-as-indecent-and-sexual/ (“But Fraser . . . hardly suggested that all speech on political and religious questions related to sexuality and sexual orientation could be banned from public high school.”). After all, a school’s mission to mold students into citizens capable of engaging in civil discourse includes teaching students of sufficient age and maturity how to navigate debates touching on sex. 35
ambiguously lewd speech that can also plausibly be interpreted as commenting on a social or political issue. A school’s leeway to categorically restrict ambiguously lewd speech, however, ends when that speech could also plausibly be interpreted as expressing a view on a political or social issue. Justices Alito and Kennedy’s concurrence in Morse adopted a similar protection for political speech that could be interpreted as illegal drug advocacy. Their narrower rationale protecting political speech limits and controls the majority opinion in Morse, and it applies with even greater force to ambiguously lewd speech. Justice Alito’s concurrence, joined by Justice Kennedy, provided the crucial fourth and fifth votes in the five-to-four majority opinion. But the two justices conditioned their votes on the “understanding that (1) [the majority opinion] goes no further than to hold that a public school may restrict speech that a reasonable observer would interpret as advocating illegal drug use and (2) it provides no support for any restriction of speech that can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue.” Morse, 551 U.S. at 422 (Alito, J., concurring); see id. at 425 (regarding the categorical regulation of non-political advocacy of ambiguous illegal drug advocacy “as standing at the far 36 reaches of what the First Amendment permits” and “join[ing] the opinion of the Court with the understanding that the opinion does not endorse any further extension”). The purpose of Justice Alito’s concurrence was to “ensur[e] that political speech will remain protected within the school setting” (subject, as always, to Tinker’s substantial-disruption principle). Ponce v. Socorro Indep. Sch. Dist., 508 F.3d 765, 768 (5th Cir. 2007). Because the votes of Justices Alito and Kennedy were necessary to the majority opinion and were expressly conditioned on their narrower understanding that speech plausibly interpreted as political or social commentary was protected from categorical regulation, that limitation is a binding part of Morse. This conclusion requires a minor detour. The most familiar situation in which we follow the narrowest rationale was expressed t by the Supreme Court in Marks v. United States: when “no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). But that situation is not the only one in which we tally the justices’ views and look for the narrowest rationale. The Supreme Court and this Court have both applied the narrowest-grounds approach in circumstances beyond those posed by Marks, 37 including to determine holdings in majority opinions (not just plurality opinions involving “no single legal rationale explain[ing] the result”) 15 and to count even dissenting justices’ votes that, by definition, could not “explain the result” (not just the votes of those who “concurred in the judgments”).16 See United States v. Johnson, 467 F.3d 56, 65 (1st Cir. 2006) (noting that the Supreme Court has “moved away” from adhering to the strict circumstances in Marks). And it makes sense that the limitations in Justice Alito’s concurrence would narrow the majority opinion. When an individual justice’s vote is not needed to form a majority, “the meaning of a majority opinion is to be found within the opinion itself” because “the gloss that an individual [j]ustice chooses to place upon it is not authoritative.” McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 15 See discussion of Horn and Bishop infra pp. 30–33. 16 See, e.g., Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 746 (1994) (combining the views of four dissenters and Justice Stewart in Baldasar v. Illinois, 446 U.S. 222 (1980), to form a “holding”); Donovan, 661 F.3d at 182 (“[W]e have looked to the votes of dissenting Justices if they, combined with votes from plurality or concurring opinions, establish a majority view on the relevant issue.”); Student Pub. Interest Research Grp. of N.J., Inc. v. AT&T Bell Labs., 842 F.2d 1436, 1451 & n.16 (3d Cir. 1988) (same). 38 448 n.3 (1990) (Blackmun, J., concurring). But when an individual justice joins the majority and is essential to maintaining the majority, and then writes separately, “the opinion is not a majority opinion except to the extent that it accords with his views.” Id. at 462 n.3 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Of course, that linchpin justice’s opinion “cannot add to what the majority opinion holds” by “binding the other four [j]ustices to what they have not said” because his views would not be the narrowest grounds. Id. But that justice’s separate opinion “can assuredly narrow what the majority opinion holds, by explaining the more limited interpretation adopted by that necessary member of the majority.” Id. In that case, the linchpin justice’s views are “the least common denominator” necessary to maintain a majority opinion. Id.; see generally Sonja R. West, Concurring in Part and Concurring in the Confusion, 104 Mich. L. Rev. 1951 (2006) (advocating the same approach and explaining that it is consistent with determining precedent from the traditional Supreme Court’s seriatim opinions). Indeed, this is not the first time that we have been compelled to limit a majority opinion by a linchpin justice’s narrower concurrence. In Horn v. Thoratec, we considered whether the federal regulation of medical devices preempts only state-law “requirement[s]” specific to medical devices or also preempts general common-law claims not specific to medical devices (such as negligence). See 376 F.3d 163, 173–74 (3d Cir. 2004). 39 That, in turn, required us to analyze the Supreme Court’s decision in Medtronic v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470 (1996). We read Part V of the Lohr majority opinion—which Justice Breyer formally joined as the fifth vote—as saying that only device-specific state-law requirements, not general common-law claims, are preempted. See Horn, 376 F.3d at 174 (noting that the majority in Part V conclud[ed] that common-law claims “escape[]” preemption because “their generality leaves them outside” of the preempted category of device-specific requirements (quoting Lohr, 518 U.S. at 502)); id. at 175 (explaining that “Justice Breyer joined in some parts of Justice Stevens’ plurality opinion (thus making it a majority opinion at times),” including “in Part V”). But we also read Justice Breyer’s concurrence as reaching the opposite conclusion, despite his having joined that portion of the majority opinion. See id. Faced with an apparent conflict between Part V of the majority opinion and Justice Breyer’s concurrence, we followed the latter because it was narrower, just as the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits had done. Id. at 175–76; see also Martin v. Medtronic, 254 F.3d 573, 581–83 (5th Cir. 2001); Kemp v. Medtronic, 231 F.3d 216, 230 (6th Cir. 2000); Mitchell v. Collagen Corp., 126 F.3d 902, 911–12 (7th Cir. 1997); Papike v. Tambrands, Inc., 107 F.3d 737, 742 (9th Cir. 1997). In doing so, we rejected our dissenting colleague’s argument that the narrowest-grounds approach was “simply inapplicable” because Justice Breyer joined Part V of the majority opinion and that the “correct course of 40 action” in the event of a conflict “would be to follow Part V as the majority opinion.” Horn, 376 F.3d at 184 & n.30 (Fuentes, J., dissenting); see id. at 183 (explaining that the Horn majority and the Seventh and Ninth Circuits “also perceived a contradiction and chose to ignore Justice Breyer’s vote for Part V, instead crediting the apparently contrary reasoning in his concurrence”). Likewise, in United States v. Bishop, 66 F.3d 569, 576–77 (3d Cir. 1995), we relied on the narrower concurring views of Justices Kennedy and O’Connor to limit the majority’s opinion in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), which they formally joined as the fourth and fifth votes. We declined to read the majority opinion so broadly as to upend judicial deference to Congress’s judgment about whether an activity substantially implicates interstate commerce, instead following the concurrence’s view that the majority had reached a “necessary though limited holding” that still “counseled great restraint” before finding that Congress had transgressed its Commerce Clause power. Bishop, 66 F.3d at 590 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 568 (Kennedy, J., concurring)). As in Horn, we took that approach notwithstanding our dissenting colleague’s argument that we should follow the breadth of the majority opinion and ignore the narrower concurrence because “Justices O’Connor and Kennedy joined in the [majority] opinion.” Id. at 591 (Becker, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). As even our dissenting 41 colleague explained, we followed the narrower views of Justices O’Connor and Kennedy because they “form[ed] an intermediate bloc [of the majority] which would view Lopez as case-specific.” Id. And Horn and Bishop are not the only examples. See, e.g., United States v. Monclavo-Cruz, 662 F.2d 1285, 1288 (9th Cir. 1981) (relying on the narrowing construction given to the majority opinion by Justice Powell, who was also a necessary member of the majority, to limit the majority’s holding in South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976)); United States v. Wilson, 636 F.2d 1161, 1164 (8th Cir. 1980) (similar). To be sure, the Supreme Court once said—in a case not involving a linchpin concurrence—that federal courts should not give “much precedential weight” to a concurring opinion, even if it coheres with the majority opinion. Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 285 n.5 (2001); see also Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 622 n.4 (1986) (describing the Marks rule as “inapplicable” to an opinion “to which five Justices expressly subscribed”). Yet we have already decided that this principle from Alexander is inapplicable to a concurrence that (1) “cast the so-called ‘swing vote,’ which was crucial to the outcome of the case and without which there could be no majority,” and (2) took a narrower approach than the majority opinion. Horn, 376 F.3d at 174–75 (distinguishing Alexander on this basis). 42 Which brings us back to Justice Alito’s concurrence in Morse. The linchpin justices in Morse— Justices Alito and Kennedy—expressly conditioned their joining the majority opinion on a narrower interpretation of the opinion—namely, that it did not permit the restriction of speech that could plausibly be interpreted as political or social speech. Had they known that lower courts would ignore their narrower understanding of the majority opinion—or had the majority opinion expressly gone farther than their limitations—then, by their own admission, they would not have joined the majority opinion. That would have transformed the five-justice majority opinion into a three-justice plurality opinion, with their concurring views becoming the controlling narrowest grounds under an uncontroversial application of the Marks doctrine. Why, then, should it matter whether they formally joined the majority opinion or not? It should not. Ignoring limitations placed on the majority opinion by a necessary member of the majority would mean that four justices could “fabricate a majority by binding a fifth to their interpretation of what they say, even though he writes separately to explain his own more narrow understanding.” McKoy, 494 U.S. at 462 n.3 (Scalia, J., dissenting). That produces inexplicable anomalies. If a four-justice plurality holds X and Y, and a fifth justice “concurs in the judgment” to hold only X and rejects Y, the fifth member’s more limited views become binding under a straightforward application of 43 Marks. The same interpretation is true if the fifth justice joins the majority opinion and “concurs in part.” Yet if the same concurring justice joins the majority opinion while “concurring,” then the majority opinion holding X and Y becomes binding and the fifth member’s narrower views evaporate. Such an approach places all of its weight on the distinction between a justice’s choice to follow his name with “concurring” instead of “concurring in part” or “concurring in the judgment.” Cf. West, Concurring in Part and Concurring in the Confusion, 104 Mich. L. Rev. at 1953–54 (explaining why these “after the comma” phrases cannot bear such weight); Tristan C. Pelham-Webb, Note, Powelling for Precedent: “Binding” Concurrences, 64 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L. 693, 737 (2009) (same). That elevates formalism over substance at the expense of ignoring the very conditions on which a necessary member of the majority expressly chose to join the majority. In short, because Justice Alito’s concurrence provides “a single legal standard . . . [that] when properly applied, produce[s] results with which a majority of the Justices in the case articulating the standard would agree,” United States v. Donovan, 661 F.3d 174, 182 (3d Cir. 2011) (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted), his opinion in Morse forms the “narrowest grounds necessary to secure a majority,” Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 947 F.2d 682, 694 n.7 (3d Cir. 1991), aff’d in part and rev’d in part on 44 other grounds, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). As a result, we agree with the en banc Fifth Circuit that the limitations placed on the majority opinion by Justice Alito’s concurrence are binding on us.17 See Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 359, 403 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (majority opinion of Elrod, J.) (describing Justice Alito’s Morse concurrence as “controlling”); see also Morgan v. Plano Indep. Sch. Dist., 589 F.3d 740, 746 n.25 (5th Cir. 2009) (“We have held Justice Alito’s concurrence to be the controlling opinion in Morse.” (citing Ponce, 508 F.3d at 768)). 17 We have had this same intuition previously. See J.S., 650 F.3d at 927 (“Notably, Justice Alito’s concurrence in Morse further emphasizes the narrowness of the Court’s holding.”). And every court of appeals to address this question (other than the Seventh Circuit) has shared our intuition. See Morgan, 589 F.3d at 746 n.25; Barr v. Lafon, 538 F.3d 554, 564 (6th Cir. 2008) (treating Justice Alito’s concurrence as the basis for Morse’s “narrow holding”); Corder v. Lewis Palmer Sch. Dist. No. 38, 566 F.3d 1219, 1228 (10th Cir. 2009) (same). The Seventh Circuit concluded, without citation or support, that the narrowest-grounds approachdoes not apply where there is a majority opinion, as in Morse.Nuxoll ex rel. Nuxoll v. Indian Prairie Sch. Dist. No. 204, 523 F.3d 668, 673 (7th Cir. 2008). But as we explain, we have already rejected the Seventh Circuit’s formalist approach when it was urged by dissenting colleagues in Horn and Bishop. 45 Justice Alito would have protected political or social speech reasonably interpreted to advocate illegal drug use, and that protection applies even more strongly to ambiguously lewd speech. In Morse, the Court added a new categorical exception to Tinker: student speech that a reasonable observer could interpret as advocating illegal drug use but that cannot plausibly be interpreted as addressing political or social issues. Id. at 422. The exception was justified because illegal drugs pose an “immediately obvious,” “grave” and “unique threat to the physical safety of students.” Id. at 425. Despite that threat, however, the Court held that speech advocating illegal drug use is not categorically unprotected if it “can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue, including speech on issues such as the wisdom of the war on drugs or of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.” Id. at 422 (internal quotation marks omitted). Even with that limitation, the Court made clear that this new exception to Tinker “stand[s] at the far reaches of what the First Amendment permits.” Id. at 425. If speech posing such a “grave” and “unique threat to the physical safety of students” can be categorically regulated only when it cannot “plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue”—and that regulation nonetheless “stand[s] at the far reaches of what the First Amendment permits”—then there is no reason why ambiguously lewd speech should receive any 46 less protection when it also “can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue.” Id. at 422, 425. One need not be a philosopher of Mill or Feinberg’s stature18 to recognize that harmful speech posing an “immediately obvious” threat to the “physical safety of students,” id. at 425, presents a far graver threat to the educational mission of schools—thereby warranting less protection—than ambiguously lewd speech that might undercut teaching “the appropriate form of civil discourse” to students, Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683. It would make no sense to afford a T-shirt exclaiming “I ♥ pot! (LEGALIZE IT)” protection under Morse while declaring that a bracelet saying “I ♥ boobies! (KEEP A BREAST)” is unprotected under Fraser. Those limits are persuasive on their own terms, even if we disregard the controlling limitations of Justice Alito’s Morse concurrence. Fraser reflects the longstanding notions that “not all speech is of equal First 18 John Stuart Mill and Joel Feinberg are both known for, among other things, their groundbreaking work on the relationship between harm and offense and how conduct of each type might be subject to criminalization. See generally Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law (1984); Joel Feinberg, Offense to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law (1985); John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859). 47 Amendment importance” and that “speech on matters of public concern . . . is at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.” Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S. Ct. 1207, 1215 (2011) (quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 145 (1983) (“[S]peech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). And it is only a limited exception to the otherwise “bedrock principle” of the First Amendment that “the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414 (1989); see also Sable Commc’ns of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989) (“Sexual expression which is indecent but not obscene is protected by the First Amendment.”). The Supreme Court has never held that schools may bore willy-nilly through that bedrock principle. But it has made clear that “minors are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection” and the government does not “have a freefloating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.” Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729, 2736 (2011). To be sure, Fraser rejected the idea that “simply because an offensive form of expression may not be prohibited to adults making what the speaker considers a political point, the same latitude must be permitted to children in a public school.” Fraser, 478 U.S. at 682. As we have explained, though, Fraser was 48 limited to plainly lewd speech, and that refusal to protect a student’s plainly lewd speech where the same speech by an adult would be protected does not extend to political speech that is not plainly lewd. On that score, our conclusion puts us in good company with five justices in Morse19 who were expressly unwilling to permit a categorical exception to Tinker that would intrude on political or social speech and two justices20 19 In addition to Justices Alito and Kennedy, three dissenting justices (Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg) would not have extended the Morse exception to political or social speech. These five justices instead split over whether Morse’s speech could reasonably be interpreted as advocating illegal drug use. Morse, 551 U.S. at 444, 448 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (concluding that Morse’s banner is constitutionally protected because it could not reasonably be interpreted as advocating illegal drug use and was at most a “minority[] viewpoint” in “the national debate about a serious issue” deserving First Amendment protection). 20 In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia refused to “stretch[] Fraser” so far as to “encompass any speech that could fit under some definition of ‘offensive’” specifically to protect “political and religious speech [that] might be perceived as offensive to some.” Morse, 551 U.S. at 409; see also id. at 403 (majority opinion) (“But not even Frederick argues that the banner conveys any sort of political or 49 who all but said as much. What’s more, this limitation is consistent with our previous intuitions as well as those of the Sixth and Second Circuits. See Saxe, 240 F.3d at 213 (Alito, J.) (noting that the “dichotomy” between Fraser and Tinker is “neatly illustrated by the comparison between Cohen’s [“Fuck the Draft”] jacket and Tinker’s armband”); Defoe, 625 F.3d at 335 n.6 (rejecting the Eleventh Circuit’s extension of Fraser to displays of the Confederate flag and instead holding that such displays “by students [are] protected political speech that school officials may only regulate by satisfying the Tinker standard” (citing Barr v. Lefon, 538 F.3d. 554, 569 n.7 (6th Cir. 2008))); Guiles, religious message. Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, this is plainly not a case about political debate over the criminalization of drug use or possession.”); id. at 406 n.2 (“[T]here is no serious argument that Frederick’s banner is political speech . . . .”). Although Justice Thomas joined that portion of the majority opinion, he would have concluded that “the First Amendment, as originally understood, does not protect student speech in public schools” and overruled Tinker. Id. at 410–11 (Thomas, J., concurring). Justice Breyer would have avoided the “difficult First Amendment issue” and concluded that “qualified immunity bars [Morse’s] claim for monetary damages.” Id. at 425 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part). 50 461 F.3d at 325 (holding Fraser inapplicable because the T-shirt was not “as plainly offensive as the sexually charged speech considered in Fraser . . . [,] especially when considering that [it was] part of an anti-drug political message”). Consequently, we hold that the Fraser exception does not permit ambiguously lewd speech to be categorically restricted if it can plausibly be interpreted as political or social speech.
lewd speech regardless of whether it could plausibly be interpreted as social or political commentary. As the Supreme Court made clear in Fraser, though, schools may restrict plainly lewd speech regardless of whether it could plausibly be interpreted to comment on a political or social issue. Fraser, 478 U.S. at 682 (“[T]he First Amendment gives a high school student the classroom right to wear Tinker’s armband, but not Cohen’s [“Fuck the Draft”] jacket.”). That is true by definition. Plainly lewd speech “offends for the same reasons obscenity offends” because the speech in that category is “no essential part of any exposition of ideas” and thus carries very “slight social value.” Id. at 683 (quoting Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. at 746 (plurality opinion)). As with obscenity in general, obscenity to minors, and all other historically unprotected categories 51 of speech, “the evil to be restricted so overwhelmingly outweighs the expressive interests, if any, at stake, that no process of case-by-case adjudication is required” because “the balance of competing interests is clearly struck.” Stevens, 130 S. Ct. at 1585–86 (quoting New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 763–64 (1982)). In other words, we do not engage in a case-by-case determination of whether obscenity to minors—and by extension, plainly lewd speech under Fraser—carries social value. As a result, schools may continue to regulate plainly lewd, vulgar, profane, or offensive speech under Fraser even if a particular instance of such speech can “plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue.” Morse, 551 U.S. at 422 (Alito, J., concurring). In response, the School District recites a mantra that has Fraser providing schools the ultimate discretion to define what is lewd and vulgar. It relies on the Supreme Court’s sentiment that schools may define their “basic educational mission” and prohibit student speech that is inconsistent with that mission. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. at 266–67.21 Indeed, before Morse, some courts of 21 See also Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683 (“[T]he determination of what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate properly rests with the school board.”); Pico, 457 U.S. at 864 (“[F]ederal courts should not ordinarily ‘intervene in the resolution of conflicts 52 appeals adopted that broad interpretation of the Supreme Court’s student-speech cases. See, e.g., LaVine v. Blaine Sch. Dist., 257 F.3d 981, 988 (9th Cir. 2001) (“[A] school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its basic educational mission.”); Boroff v. Van Wert City Bd. of Educ., 220 F.3d 465, 470 (6th Cir. 2000) (“[W]here Boroff’s T-shirts contain symbols and words that promote values that are so patently contrary to the school’s educational mission, the School has the authority, under the circumstances of this case, to prohibit those T-shirts [under Fraser].”). Whatever the face value of those sentiments, such sweeping and total deference to school officials is incompatible with the Supreme Court’s teachings. In Tinker, Hazelwood, and Morse, the Supreme Court independently evaluated the meaning of the student’s speech and the reasonableness of the school’s which arise in the daily operation of school systems.’” (quoting Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 104 (1968))); Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 326 (1975) (“It is not the role of the federal courts to set aside decisions of school administrators which the court may view as lacking a basis in wisdom or compassion.”); see also Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. at 273 (“[T]he education of the Nation’s youth is primarily the responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials, and not of