We Should Have Seen It Coming: The 'Mahanoy' Decision Considered

Electronic communication plays a significant role in most schools and in all of our personal lives as well. The legal question of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable electronic speech for students that is constructed and delivered totally off-campus on such platforms such as Snapchat, Tic Toc, Facebook or Meta, U-Tube, and regular email, to name just a few, begs the question of when school officials may intervene and penalize students for electronic communication? With electronic communication having such a significant role in schools, a new array of legal issues has surfaced for off-campus speech. The U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of "Tinker v. Des Moines" and subsequent cases clarified the various parameters of appropriate student speech on campus and when school officials may take corrective action to curtail that speech. The "Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L." decision by the Supreme Court in 2021 offers some limited guidance on how student off-campus electronic speech may be contemplated by school officials. How do prospective principal candidates view off-campus posts in light of the "Mahanoy" decision?