Should Schools Be Able To Limit Free Speech In Schools?

Imagine two scenarios, two different students, in the same school, same grade. One of these students posts about a student that they dislike, bullying them and essentially making them feel unsafe. The other student posts several photos and posts advocating for the #blacklivesmatter campaign, this seems to offend a few students and teachers. These two scenarios bring the question of whether schools should be able to limit online speech and how much this could violate a student’s first amendment right. While some may argue that anything outside the school is irrelevant to school; schools should limit free speech in schools for cyberbullying is very current with dramatic effects, leads to harassment in school, and violates the Office of Civil …show more content…
As a Middle School math teacher in the Blue Mountain School District, Randy Nunemacher, “experienced a disruption in his class when six or seven student were talking and discussing the profile”(Document D). This profile contained posts that made fun of her principal. Although in this specific case it was a teacher being harassed, this situation could easily be duplicated in the place of a student. The major difference however is that a student could be bullied and singled out by that particular student or multiple students making them feel alienated and unwanted. As it is a major problem in schools is bullying in person but the addition of online bullying only makes the person being bullied have to face this combat much worse. If schools can limit cyberbullying, which in some cases could be the root of bullying in person, schools can also limit the rate of bullying in …show more content…
Some may argue in contradiction that doing so goes against the constitution for it violates the first amendment outside of school. The student named as K.K. agrees arguing, “because [her] case involved ‘off-campus, non-school related speech,’ school administrators had no power to discipline her”(Document C). What K.K. is not considering is that while this speech was outside of school it will and can travel into the school for at least one person (herself) is involved in this situation, making this a school related event. More to say based on the interpretation of the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, “When such harassment is based on race, color, national origin, or disability, it violates the civil rights laws that the OCR (the Office of Civil Right) enforces. A school is responsible for addressing harassment incidents about which it knows or reasonably should have known…” (Document G) In other words the involvement of schools with free speech in or outside of school is defended legally and is rightful for the school to be involved. Other than educating children a school has to guarantee that a student feels safe in their own school. If that isn’t possible merely because schools can’t have a say on what a student says online then why would it be just for them to have a say on a what a student says inside