The New York Times
A Cheerleader’s Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown
WASHINGTON — It was a Saturday in the spring of 2017, and a ninth grade student in Pennsylvania was having a bad day. She had just learned that she had failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad and would remain on junior varsity.The student expressed her frustration on social media, sending a message on Snapchat to about 250 friends. The message included an image of the student and a friend with their middle fingers raised, along with text expressing a similar sentiment. Using a curse word four times, the student expressed her dissatisfaction with “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.”Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesThough Snapchat messages are ephemeral by design, another student took a screenshot of this one and showed it to her mother, a coach. The school…
