Issue 6-Final

6 the hourglass | May/june 2021
FREE SPEECH AND SOCIAL MEDIA
By MARIN HORWITZ ‘24
Brandi Levy, a high school sophomore
from Schuylkill County, PA,
was suspended from cheerleading at
her school because she posted a picture
of her and a friend in a grocery store,
with obscene language and gestures, expressing
her anger towards her school.
So she sued her school. This was in
September of 2017, and since then, this
local case has been heard by the US Supreme
Court. But even the highest court
has had a hard time deciding Levy’s right
to free speech relative to social media.
Levy’s is the most recent case that
concerns social media and the First Amendment,
but that does not mean it is the first.
In 1997, the Supreme Court heard
Reno v. ACLU, a challenge to the Communications
Decency Act (CDA) that
penalized online speech that is deemed
offensive; ACLU argued that the Act was
unconstitutional. The Supreme Court
agreed. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote
that “the interest in encouraging freedom
of expression in a democratic society
outweighs any theoretical but unproven
benefit of censorship.” The decision declared
that the “internet” is like print media,
meaning posters on social media have
just as much protection as a newspaper.
But there’s a difference. Typically,
when one writes for a newspaper or pamphlet,
there are people who fact-check the
writing; when on social media, however,
one only has to type and post. Social media
gives everyone a platform; views that
were discussed at a dreaded Thanksgiving
dinner can now be broadcasted to the
whole world. Most of us wouldn’t have
access to a newspaper to share our views,
but we do have Twitter and Facebook;
these platforms provide spaces for people
to state their beliefs, based on fact or not.
This leads to the spread of misinformation.
Debating peoples’ opinions
isn’t illegal; only when those discussions
lead to violence does it become illegal.
Because social media is protected under
the First Amendment, the government
essentially leaves it up to the platforms
to monitor and censor their users’ posts,
leaving the question: how do they do this?
The answer is the “Terms and Conditions”
waiver that every user has to sign
before using some platforms. The waiver
allows companies to put limits on what
the users can post or say, and punishes
rule breakers accordingly. For example,
Twitter suspended Donald Trump’s account,
muting him on the platform permanently,
citing that he violated their
“Glorification of Violence policy” by
helping to incite the riot on January 6th.
On the other hand, Parler, a platform
that the Capitol rioters used to organize,
calls itself an “unbiased social media” and
a platform where users can “speak freely
and express [themselves] openly, without
fear of being ‘deplatformed’ for [their]
views.” Compared to Twitter, Parler has
shorter guidelines for their community.
For this reason, Parler has become popular
for far-right conservatives. Jack Nicas
from the New York Times noted this migration
to alternative social media platforms:
“Millions of people on the far right [have]
flocked to the platform over what they
[perceive] as censorship of conservative
voices by Facebook, Twitter, and Google”.
In 2021, people don’t just talk or read
or write about their views and opinions;
they post about them, and Brandi Levy was
one of those people. On June 23rd, the Supreme
Court ruled 8-1 in her favor, saying
that unless a student’s off-campus speech
genuinely harms the school, its atmosphere,
or other students, a school can not punish
its students for what they say off-campus.
The First Amendment protects our
right to free speech, and social media is
always pushing the boundaries of what it
protects, making it just as quintessential
now as it was when it was first written.
Private schools and
the first amendment:
HOW ATTENDING A PRIVATE
SCHOOL AFFECTS
OUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH
By KATIE MCMAHON ‘22
Picture yourself sitting in a 10thgrade
history class learning about
the First Amendment. I’m picturing
it, and I don’t remember learning that we,
at a private school, can have our freedom
of speech limited while we are at Baldwin.
When I think about the First
Amendment, I think about what I did learn:
how freedom of speech, press, religion,
assembly, and petition shape the United
States. Surprisingly, at Baldwin, we can
be censored for exercising these rights.
Although we technically still hold
our First Amendment rights like freedom
of speech at Baldwin, this doesn’t mean we
experience it the same way as public school
students. While the state cannot punish
students for wearing political t-shirts or
holding a protest at school, Baldwin could
ban those activities. We would not be protected
by the First Amendment because
since Baldwin is a private school, we have
legally agreed to follow Baldwin’s rules.
When I think about “What makes
Baldwin, Baldwin?,” I think about the
outspoken student body and their strongly
held ideas. When I consider how we could
be silenced or censored and are powerless
to do anything in response, it doesn’t seem
right. In addition, the realization that Baldwin
has the legal right to censor almost
anything that comes from the student body
can subconsciously, or even consciously,
negatively affect our expression of ideas.
As opposed to Baldwin and other
private schools, First Amendment rights
are protected for public school students at
school. In one Supreme Court case, Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent Community
School District, several high school
students wore black armbands to class to
protest the Vietnam War and were sent
home by the school. The students and their
parents sued the school, alleging that their
right of free expression was protected by
the First Amendment. The court decided
that the armbands were a form of speech
and prohibiting them did, in fact, violate
First Amendment rights, stating that students
do not lose “freedom of speech or
expression at the schoolhouse gate.” As
for Baldwin, if the administration decided
that we could not express our views
as in the Des Moines case, we would
have no recourse over their decision.
So the big question I have is: Why
can’t we have the same level of freedom
as those at a public school? While the answer
may be that in legal terms, we have
voluntarily agreed to follow Baldwin’s
rules, I wonder why Baldwin can’t guarantee
us freedom of speech, within limitations,
like those already present in the
First Amendment itself. Although we may
not be continually censored or restricted
in our ideas and actions, the idea that
we could be doesn’t sit right with me.
In a study conducted by the Friedman
Foundation, the top five reasons why parents
send their children to private schools
are “better student discipline,” “better
learning environments,” “smaller class
sizes,” “improved student safety,” and
“more individual attention.” And here at
Baldwin, we experience the benefits of
attending an all-girls private school every
day. We sit in a classroom where the teacher
attentively listens to our viewpoint; we
engage in debate. In a world where men
predominantly fill leadership positions
and boardrooms, we are lucky to learn in
an environment that doesn’t adhere to the
societal norm of men first, women second.
But why do we have to sacrifice our
freedom of expression in order to benefit
from our Baldwin experience? In
our Baldwin community (or any private
school across the country) we shouldn’t
be forced to choose between our independent
school education and the preservation
of our freedom of speech.