Today’s unanimous Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court decision is so. Appeal of G.S.In an opinion of Judge Ellen Ceisler
[T]he Rose Tree Media School District …. expel[led] G.S. G.S.[, on the grounds that he] … had violated its Student Discipline Code by posting violent song lyrics on Snapchat despite the fact that G.S. The offending posting was made at a time when the student was not on campus or involved in school activities. [W]hen G.S. hen G.S. was 16 years old and in the 11th grade[,] … [he]His personal phone was used to upload the following to Snapchat. He had between 60 and 65 followers, which included 4 to 5 School District students.
Everyone, I
You should hate everyone
Get fucked!
You can eat the shit.
blackout,
The world is a cemetery!
To all of you, I
will fucking
Get rid of everything
you! You can do this!
This is me
my, snap!
Although G.S. While G.S. G.S. In his reply to the extracted lyrics, G.S. [Always a bad sign! -EV] G.S. He did not target this post towards any specific person or group, did not tag other Snapchat users in the post and also did not post it at a time when his school was in session. He posted instead while attending an Easter Sunday party with extended family members in New Jersey.
Many students were absent the following morning due to this posting. I have simplified the procedure a lot. G.S. G.S. was expelled and the court ruled that this violation of his First Amendment rights.
[M]G.S.’s position is the basis of much of the Argumentation made by School District. G.S. post was clearly a threat to the District, and it is legal and legally justified to expeil G.S. on that basis…. [This], however, misapprehend the actual reasoning employed by the School District’s hearing officer in his August 13, 2018 report…. [T]He hearing officer did not have the chance to assess whether or not the offense was real. [that] determination[.]” Instead, the hearing officer reasoned that … G.S. should be expelled … because his post “materially disrupted class work, involved substantial disorder[,]as well as infringed on the rights of other.” … Given that the School District adopted the August 13, 2018 report wholesale, it cannot now seek to retroactively expand or revise its justification for expelling G.S. The true threat analysis discussed above is therefore inapplicable to this matter….
Now, we need to make sure that the School District has properly decided that G.S. His Snapchat account had caused significant disruption to Penncrest’s educational environment. Therefore, his expulsion didn’t violate his constitutional right of free speech. G.S. G.S.’s post caused a series of events which undoubtedly disrupted Penncrest operations and led to communal fear and agitation. However, we conclude that the post was constitutionally protected speech and that the School District couldn’t punish him.
G.S. We acknowledge that the content of G.S.’s post is troubling, facially speaking. It seems to reflect an author’s generalized feelings of existential anger, and even homicidal intention. This post is not surprising. However, due to the urgency of the situation, the School District decided that it would be a concern at first and that G.S. would be suspended. The School District suspended G.S. while investigating the issue. The “strong public interest” in reducing violence within schools and communities is evident. It is therefore crucial that schools are kept safe as learning centers.[,]And, more importantly, “[t]Safety is the belief that students and teachers are free from fear and safe.
Nevertheless, Article I, Section 7, and the First Amendment remain in force. [the free speech provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution]The law states that schools can’t have control over students’ off-campus speech without strong connections between the student’s expressions and their school.
G.S. did not explicitly target specific Penncrest students, let alone the broader School District community, and he posted at a time when he was neither at Penncrest nor engaged in school-related activities…. [T]There is no doubt that G.S. G.S.’s post contained only lyrics from songs he liked. G.S. G.S. The School District, however, failed to substantively refute these assertions. His parents and Dr. Habony both maintained that G.S. was neither a violent individual nor a danger to other people. These assertions were not disputed by the School District. Instead, they argued that G.S.’s plain language was sufficient to support their claims. Post, along with the reaction of the public and the criminal charges against him. In factoHe had intended to hurt members of School District’s community. This argument supports, in large measure, G.S.’s assertion that he had intended to harm members of the School District community. The School District’s argument that G.S. should be expelled was supported by this argument.[the post]It was distributed to Penncrest students, their families and friends. [created]There is fear within the community [that]Penncrest suffered significant disruption in the days to come.”
The School District wants us to evaluate whether disciplining students in order to prevent disruptions from off-campus speech is constitutionally permissible. We would use an analytical framework to assess the value of the society’s response, while ignoring the context and intent of speech. We reject the deeply flawed suggestion of School District.
If this were not the case, schools could be given the authority to discipline students for expressing public thoughts or feelings that they do not fully understand. The result would be that public schools could become de factoFull-time censors. They prevent children from making decisions about which aspects of pop culture should they consume or hold.
An expansion of government authority could cause great harm to individuals’ expressive rights, especially those who are “still in the formative year we once knew,” when there can be such severe wounds, so much disappointment, so many mistakes, so that self-fulfillment and moral actions still seem possible. Although public schools may react to disturbing speech from students in order to protect staff members and their communities as this case illustrates, they are not intended to be “protective” of the community.[t]This Constitution is intended to enable opinions and judgments (esthetic, moral, about literature and art) to be formed, tested and expressed. These judgments, according to the Constitution, are made by the person and not by the institution. [g]Overnment can be made to decree even with the approval or mandate of majority.”
While public schools can take the necessary, reasonable, and good-faith steps to safeguard their community in uncertain situations, where it’s unclear whether student’s speech off-campus indicates any genuinely harmful intent or not, neither Article I, Section 7, nor the First Amendment require them to sit back until an actual threat is realized. A student’s correctly contextualized off-campus speech that is not directly connected with school activities and clearly directed toward members of the educational community may cause a school to reach beyond its constitutional rights to seek to discipline that student. As such, the evidence is lacking any proof of a connection between G.S. and his high school or fellow students. As such, there is no evidence to show that G.S. was connected with his high school, or any of his classmates. The School District decided to remove him from Penncrest, in violation both Article I and Section 7.
{G.S. for the disruption that ensued after he put up his post, even though the record reflects that those disturbances were more precisely attributable to widespread misinterpretation and misjudgment of the import and provenance of the words the post contained.}