Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court upheld an earlier court decision that Manheim Township School District had violated student rights. They expelled him permanently for sending joke Snapchat messages after school hours. J.S. was the student who sent two texts to his friend making fun of another student’s habit of wearing T-shirts for Cannibal Corpse. The other was a picture of the student singing into the microphone, with the caption “I’m shooting up school this week.” “I can’t bear it any longer, I’m done!” Second was another video of the student with a guitar. It was captioned, “Many will die in this storm.” Before J.S., the second student posted them briefly to Snapchat. He asked for them to be taken down. Some students, however, had seen the items and reported it to authorities. They were not a threat, and police investigated. However, school officials determined that the messages were threatening. They expelled J.S. According to the court’s ruling, it was clear that these messages weren’t meant to be threatening.
Reason.com first posted Brickbat: Out