Amicus Brief: Leroy v. Livingston Manor School District

After a high school student posted a photo on social media—off-campus, not during school time—that administrators deemed racially insensitive, he was suspended. He sued and the district court issued a troubling opinion with a very limited view of student First Amendment rights.

On appeal before the Second Circuit, MI has joined the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on a brief emphasizing that the speech in question is core political speech and clarifying the limited bounds of schools’ authority to discipline off-campus conduct. The brief specifically confronts the concerning implications of the lower-court ruling that leaves a student with virtually no speech rights and turns schools into 24/7 thought police. It’s essentially an application of the “potty-mouthed cheerleader” Supreme Court ruling from a few years ago.

Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.

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