Under the Law

Abstract

The nearly 50-year-old decision in Tinker v. Des Moines ensured that students would have a right to free speech in their school lives. In the words of the Tinker decision, students do not “shed their rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate.” In terms of student speech on campus, schools clearly have the authority to limit speech that is disruptive, lewd or vulgar, or encourages the use of illegal drugs. But when the speech is off-campus, a school’s authority is not so clear. As schools have grappled with issues of electronic speech which occurs off campus, they have applied the Tinker standard in deciding the appropriateness of discipline for students who created the speech. Most often, the courts are concluding that schools may sanction misbehavior where the off-campus electronic conduct was directed somehow at the school with the intent or likelihood that the communications would result in a substantial disruption within the school.