School stopped in disciplinary effort

In a ruling with potentially wide-ranging implications, a federal judge has temporarily stopped Mahanoy Area High School from disciplining a student for her use of foul language in an off-campus internet post.

Senior District Judge A. Richard Caputo on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order barring the school from removing the 15-year-old girl, identified only as B.L., from the junior varsity cheerleading squad due to the Snapchat post in which she used profanities.

Caputo, who held a hearing Monday in his Wilkes-Barre courtroom, ruled the girl is likely to succeed in her claim that the school violated her First Amendment rights in attempting to punish her for off-campus speech.

B.L. published the post on the photo-sharing app, according to her lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union. The post contained a picture of her and a friend with their middle fingers extended and a series of obscenities, according to the complaint filed Sept. 25.

The post "was not accessible to the general public," according to the complaint.

Although B.L. shared the photo only with friends, school officials eventually received it and imposed the discipline, according to the complaint.

Because it involved only off-campus speech, the punishment imposed by the school violates B.L.'s constitutional rights, it says.

In addition to reinstatement and removal of the incident from school records, B.L. and her parents asked for a declaration that the school's cheerleading rules are unconstitutional as applied to off-campus speech, and to be awarded attorney fees and monetary damages to be determined at trial.