You may recall my previous columns about the Mahanoy Area student who sent her 250 Snapchat friends an intemperate post telling them how she felt about being excluded from the school’s varsity cheerleading and softball squads.

Two federal courts ruled in the girl’s favor, saying she had the right to express her frustrated views because she was not on school property, it was on a weekend, and her actions did not upset the school’s routine.

According to the facts in the case, agreed to by both sides, the student, known as “B. Levy” and posing in street clothes with a friend, middle finger raised, took a selfie at a teen hangout in Mahanoy City. On top of the photo, she added the F-word before “school,” “softball,” “cheer” and “everything.” She then posted the captioned photo on her private Snapchat account where it could be viewed briefly by about 250 of her “friends.”

One of the friends shared the post with her mother, who contacted the school district, and things took off from there.

Not satisfied that its appeal has been shot down twice, the school board has decided to spend more taxpayer money and has now appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide in February whether to hear the case.

I see this case as even less compelling than the infamous “I Love Boobies” case from 2012 where the Easton Area School District appealed a case all the way to the nation’s high court at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Two middle school students wore I Love Boobies bracelets to class in honor of relatives with breast cancer. The district proclaimed that this act incited hormonally challenged teenage boys to react in a sexual and disruptive manner and suspended the girls when they refused to remove the bracelets. The Supreme Court upheld the girls’ rights and their suspensions were overturned.

The Mahanoy Area district appealed the original 2017 federal court decision maintaining that the student and her parents signed an authorization before she tried out for the squad agreeing to abide by the “Cheerleading Rules,” which require squad members “to have respect for the school, coaches, teachers, other cheerleaders and teams.”

The rules prohibit foul language and inappropriate gestures. “There will be no toleration of any negative information regarding cheerleading, cheerleaders or coaches placed on the internet,” the written rules say. In ruling against the district in the earlier case, the judge said that despite the authorization, a student cannot sign away First Amendment rights.

Last June, after the appeals court verdict, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which has been supporting Levy’s case, applauded the decision that “public schools do not have the power to discipline students for off-campus speech.” This case even went further than previous protections, because the court added, “… even if the speech causes or is likely to cause a disruption on campus.”

“This is an important decision because it recognizes that students who are outside of school enjoy full free speech rights, not the diluted rights they have inside the schoolhouse,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “Schools have historically used the ‘disruption’ standard to punish students for criticizing what’s happening at school. This decision clarifies that young people enjoy full First Amendment protection when outside of school.”

In its petition to the Supreme Court, the school district called the appeals court decision a “disaster” and insisted that without the power to regulate students’ off-campus social posts, such as in the case of cyberbullying, it cannot protect student welfare and leaves itself open to parental lawsuits.

The school district cites the landmark 1969 U.S. Supreme Case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which held that although students do not lose their First Amendment rights of Freedom of Speech when they step onto school property, school officials also can ban the activity if they can prove that the conduct in question would “materially and substantially” affect decorum.

Through their attorney, the Mahanoy Area student and her family filed a brief with the high court opposing the school district’s appeal, saying that the case stems from a “momentary expression of frustration, voiced by a disappointed student on a weekend, far from school, on Snapchat, a medium designed for temporary, self-deleting messages.

My prediction is that the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear the case and will let the ruling of the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals stand, as it should.

Trying to come down hard on students who post views away from school in ways seen as disrespectful and unpalatable by adults shows a shocking lack of understanding about free speech and the nature of how today’s youth express themselves. In case you missed it, the genie is out of the bottle, and no matter how hard you wish, it’s not going back inside.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com