By Sam Ozer-Staton

In 2017, a Pennsylvania 14-year-old named Brandi Levy did not make her public school’s varsity cheerleading or softball teams. Like many young people, she took to social media to voice her frustration. Levy posted a photo to Snapchat with her middle finger raised and the caption, “Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.” Her coaches saw screenshots of the post, and she was suspended for a year from junior varsity cheer on the grounds that she violated team and school rules.

Levy’s parents sued the school district, sparking a debate that gets to the heart of a question that has grown ever more urgent in the age of social media: Can schools punish students for off-campus speech?

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Levy’s punishment violated the First Amendment. But Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, did not agree with a lower court ruling that there should be a categorical ban on regulating speech outside of school. “Unlike the Third Circuit,” Breyer wrote, “we do not believe the special characteristics that give schools additional license to regulate student speech always disappear when a school regulates speech that takes place off campus.”