The First Amendment, Public School Students, and the Need for Clear Limits on School Officials' Authority Over Off-Campus Student Speech

When, if ever, can school officials punish a student's off-campus speech? The Supreme Court's student-speechjurisprudence does not provide a clear answer. But thismuch is clear: School officials do not possess absoluteauthority over students' on-campus speech. Public schoolstudents do not shed their First Amendment rights at theschoolhouse gate.

And yet during school or school-relatedactivities, public school students do not have coequal FirstAmendment rights with adults in other contexts. Duringschool or school-related activities, school officials mayproscribe otherwise-permitted speech in order to fulfill theschool's basic educational mission, which includesinstructingstudents in civility.How to apply these precedents to off-campus, onlinestudent speech still awaits Supreme Court review. In2012, the Court missed the opportunity to clarify itsstudent-speech jurisprudence by denying certiorari in twocases-one from the Third and the other from the FourthCircuit. This Note argues that until the Court addressesthe scope of school officials' authority over off-campusspeech, courts should follow the Third Circuit's approachto such cases.

Under this approach, school officials'authority to regulate student speech does include some off-campus student speech; for example, speech that reasonably creates a threat to the on-campus safety ofstudents or school officials. Yet their authority does notapply to all off-campus student speech that could offendother students or even devastate their well-being