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The Biden administration and a Pennsylvania school district urged a skeptical Supreme Court this morning to let school districts suppress free speech by students on social media if they deem it potentially disruptive to school operations.

The case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., court file 20-255, was heard April 28. ...

In 2017, when Levy was 14 and a freshman, she made the Mahanoy Area High School junior varsity cheerleading team, but as a sophomore she failed to advance to the varsity squad, remaining junior varsity, according to the district’s petition.

On a Saturday when she was not present at the school she visited Snapchat where messages automatically disappear after 24 hours. She posted a photograph of herself and a friend, middle fingers extended, alongside the caption, “F— school f— softball f— cheer f— everything.”

A screenshot of the message made it to students and teachers. Levy’s coaches suspended her from the cheerleading team for a year.

Levy sued and both the U.S. District Court and a majority of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit held the suspension violated the First Amendment. The 3rd Circuit found that “Tinker does not apply to off-campus speech—that is, speech that is outside school-owned, -operated, or -supervised channels and that is not reasonably interpreted as bearing the school’s imprimatur.”

But during oral arguments, Blatt said the Tinker ruling should apply off-campus because “speech can cause on-campus disruption.”