Public schools have real responsibilities: keeping students safe, maintaining order, and protecting learning time. But the First Amendment still matters, especially when a student’s speech happens off campus, in a private message, or otherwise outside school programs.
A recent federal case out of Illinois puts that tension in a very modern setting: a private Snapchat message sent off campus from one student to another. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the judge’s bottom line was procedural: the student’s First Amendment claim cannot be thrown out yet based solely on the pleadings. The facts need to be developed before a court can decide whether discipline was justified.
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The Snapchat message
The student plaintiff says she was disciplined by her public high school after she sent an off-campus Snapchat message to a friend (another student). The message referred to a third student and read: “cant even spell in english. leave. go back to wherever u came from.”
The plaintiff also raised additional context when asking the court to reconsider its earlier dismissal. She argued the message was not sent directly to the student it referred to, and that she sent it only because the other student had disparaged veterans. She also argued the court had assumed certain facts not alleged in the First Amended Complaint.
Two details matter immediately in First Amendment terms.
It was off campus and private. The student says it was sent privately to a friend, not posted publicly or directed to the student it discussed.
It ultimately reached the school. The complaint alleges the third student learned of the message and reported it.
The school’s position, in broad terms, is familiar to anyone who follows student speech cases: even if a message starts outside school walls, it can become the school’s business if it threatens a concrete and substantial disruption or invades other students’ rights.
What Mahanoy did and did not do
In 2021, the Supreme Court decided Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., a key case about off-campus student speech. The Court rejected a simple rule that would let schools regulate everything that touches school life. At the same time, it did not declare off-campus speech untouchable.
Mahanoy outlined three specific categories of student speech that schools may regulate in certain circumstances: (1) “indecent,” “lewd,” or “vulgar” speech during a school assembly on school grounds, (2) speech during a class trip promoting “illegal drug use,” and (3) speech that others may reasonably perceive as bearing the school’s imprimatur, such as content in a school-sponsored newspaper.
But Mahanoy also acknowledged that some off-campus speech can be regulated, giving examples that included “serious or severe bullying or harassment targeting particular individuals,” threats, failures to follow rules tied to online school activities, and breaches of school security.
Most importantly for everyday readers, the Supreme Court emphasized that off-campus regulation is usually harder to justify. It noted three features of off-campus speech:
Schools rarely stand in for parents off campus. Off-campus speech normally falls within the “zone of parental, rather than school-related, responsibility.”
Courts should be skeptical when schools reach off campus. The school has a “heavy burden” to justify intervening in off-campus religious or political speech.
Schools also have a protective role. The school has an interest in protecting a student’s unpopular expression, especially off campus.
What Mahanoy did not do is just as important: it did not provide a single bright-line test for when off-campus speech becomes punishable. It left “future cases” to work out where, when, and how those features make a constitutional difference.
Why dismissal was premature
In the Illinois case, the judge initially dismissed the student’s First Amendment claim. On reconsideration, however, the court reopened that claim because the earlier decision treated “substantial disruption” as if it were already established.
There are two important clarifications from the reconsideration ruling. First, the court stated it understood the plaintiff alleged she sent the message privately to another student, not to the student referenced in the message. Second, the court explained that when it described the speech as containing a second-person direct command, it was pointing to the language of the message itself: “leave” and “go back to wherever u came from.”
The critical procedural point is this: at the motion-to-dismiss stage, a court is not weighing evidence. It is asking whether the complaint, assuming its factual allegations are true and giving the plaintiff reasonable inferences, states a plausible constitutional claim.
Here, the court concluded that it had credited disruption that was not actually pleaded. In other words, the complaint itself did not lay out enough facts showing a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption or an actual disruption of school operations.
Because the Supreme Court’s off-campus standard is so fact-dependent, the judge emphasized that many student-speech disputes are resolved later, at summary judgment or in preliminary-injunction proceedings, once there is a record that answers questions like:
How widely did the message spread, and how quickly?
What exactly happened at school afterward, if anything?
Did administrators have concrete reasons to predict disruption, or only a generalized fear?
Was the speech more like a single nasty remark, or more like sustained harassment?
The student also alleges she told the recipient not to share the message with anyone. That fact does not automatically make school discipline unconstitutional, but it does matter when a court is deciding whether the school could reasonably treat the message as the kind of off-campus speech that predictably spills into school in a disruptive way.
One message, harassment, and others’ rights
The message at issue is plainly hostile. Many readers will also recognize the “go back to wherever u came from” sentiment as a familiar form of exclusionary rhetoric. Schools have strong reasons to respond to discriminatory harassment.
But the First Amendment question is not simply whether the speech is offensive. The question is whether the school can show a constitutionally adequate basis to punish off-campus speech, consistent with Mahanoy and the older student-speech framework that allows regulation of speech that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.”
At this early stage, the court could not conclude that a single private message to a friend automatically qualifies as the kind of “serious or severe bullying or harassment targeting particular individuals” that Mahanoy described as potentially regulable. That does not mean it cannot qualify after more facts come in. It means the court is not going to assume it does.
Practical lessons
1) Off campus is not consequence-free
Mahanoy left room for schools to act when off-campus speech crosses into threats, true harassment, or conduct that predictably detonates inside the school day. If a message is part of ongoing targeting, or if it sparks real conflict at school, courts may uphold discipline.
2) Schools have a heavier lift off campus
When a school punishes speech that happened away from school and outside a school program, it should expect close judicial scrutiny. The school generally needs specific, articulable reasons, not just a sense that the speech is ugly or that it conflicts with school values.
3) Procedure can decide what happens next
This ruling is a reminder that a case can move forward even when the eventual outcome is uncertain. If the complaint does not actually allege disruption, courts are cautious about ending the case before evidence is gathered.
4) Ask what response fits
Even when discipline is legally possible, it is not always the wisest first tool. Schools can sometimes address harmful off-campus speech through restorative practices, counseling supports, targeted anti-harassment interventions, and clear communication with families, especially when facts are still unfolding.
The takeaway
The Constitution does not require public schools to ignore harmful speech that affects students, including speech that begins online and off campus. But the First Amendment does require schools to justify punishment with more than instinct or offense.
This Illinois case sits right in the unsettled space Mahanoy left behind: determining when an off-campus, private message becomes a school-discipline issue. For now, the student’s lawsuit can proceed, and the key questions will be factual ones about reach, impact, and whether disruption was real or reasonably foreseeable.