The fundamental right to free speech is something that should not be up for debate. We all have a right to speak our minds and publish what we like without fear of consequences, but when a cheerleader posted a vulgar message on her Snapchat, her freedom of speech became in question.

Frustrated with the results of cheerleading tryouts, a sophomore, second-year cheerleader posted two messages to her personal social media account. The first post contained profanities accompanied by a photo of her and a friend raising the middle finger while the second post contained an angry comment on making the certain level of cheerleading.

A good amount of students were able to view the post causing some of them to get upset about her words and behavior. Some students even decided to show the posts to the cheerleading coach who decided that the posts violated rules of both her squad and the school.

The student was removed from her cheerleading team for her posts and decided to fight back suing the school and petitioning that those actions violated her right to freedom of speech.

Whether the cheerleader was on or off campus, there is no justification to censor her words and keep her from posting.

Students have repeatedly been denied this first amendment right because of school districts feeling like they have the authority to filter what is or is not said and posted about their school. There have been incidents in our own school district where they have attempted to censor a newspaper posting because it was interpreted as a violation of the district policies on student publication.

The district shouldn’t be given authority to that extent. In California, Education Code 48907 rules higher than district policies, therefore they have no jurisdiction to censor. School districts should be required to give students the same rights as every American citizen, and that includes freedom of speech.

In regards to the cheerleader case though, the debate for free speech is a lot simpler than it is outlined to be. The student posted her frustration with the school and the cheerleading program on her personal account. This was not printed on posters plastered around campus, or spoken to in front of the entire school, this was a personal expression of her emotions and anger. Her off campus speech should be protected.

If she was directly trying to cause chaos and disrupt the school then it would make sense why her post would be taken down, but this doesn’t seem like the case. Her post was clearly just an expression of anger and nothing more. 

While it seems easy to say that the cheerleader should be granted free speech, some people disagree with this argument and counter with the fact that school districts need to be more cautious with what is posted and said online.

From the standpoint of the district, yeah that completely makes sense! We wouldn’t want people posting incidents about racism, or bullying, or corruption in our school district, so any time we see a post of that content, we should censor it. But it doesn’t work that way.

Even though it may make the district or school “look bad”, it isn’t their job to erase their mistakes and claim none of it happened. It is up to the students and the staff who are involved with incidents like this to speak up and demand change.

Calling out our mistakes will only help us grow. We can’t hide behind a mask and deny, we need to step up and make a difference.

While the school thought it was necessary to take down the cheerleader’s post and discipline her, it was not necessary to deny her of her Constitutional rights. All speech must be protected, and that should not be up for debate.