How a teenage cheerleader's middle finger landed her in landmark US Supreme Court case
This handout image courtesy of Danna Singer provided by ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) shows Brandi Levy, a former cheerleader at Mahanoy Area High School in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania
In an uncanny series of events, a cheerleader in the United States is set to the face the Supreme Court soon. 14-year-old Brandi Levy was rejected from her high school’s cheerleading squad. In a fit of anger, she lashed out on the social networking app Snapchat. She uploaded a picture of her showing the middle finger.
Never did she think that a moment of expression of frustration on the app would land her in the US Supreme Court. Soon after the pic was uploaded on Snapchat, it reached the coaches, who then banned her from the field for over a year.
Now, the US Supreme Court will review this decision of the school. Many critics are seeing the case as imperative to understanding freedom of speech for youngsters in the country, clubbed with the need to curb online harassment.
Nine US Supreme Court justices will now decide whether schools can punish students for making comments outside of the establishment. The message was posted in 2017 in Mahonay City, Pennsylvania.
"I tried out for the varsity team for cheerleading and I didn't make it, so I was pretty upset," AFP cited Levy as saying to the ACLU, a civil rights association representing her in court.
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Reportedly, the girl took a picture of herself and a friend with her middle finger in the air while adding a series of expletives against the school and “everything”.
Soon after the ban, her parents took her to court under the protection for the First Amendment of the US Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. She won.
Later, the school asked the Supreme Court to intervene based on a 1969 ruling allowing students to wear black armbands to show their opposition to the Vietnam War. Even then, the ruling states that speech which disrupts school operations could be punished.
(With inputs from agencies)