Anything posted by someone at that age, especially on a temporary medium such as snapchat, should have an implicit "for entertainment purposes only" label on it along with a EULA that says that unless it might cause immediate danger to someone else that it should be treated as satire.
And that includes incentives like punishing them when they act like an asshole. The question is whether this mandate schools have (which we all agree they have!) extends outside school grounds, and how far.
Now, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't (I for one am a little conflicted here and don't have a clear opinion). But whether it does or not has nothing to do with whether we should take student speech "seriously".
Oh yes it can. And should.
> The question is whether this mandate schools have (which we all agree they have!)
No we don't.
It's literally the first amendment. Student was exercising her first amendment rights. School has a right to tell her that they don't agree with the opinions she expressed but certainly not the authority to punish her.
Else it's a slippery slope [0] [1] [2]
[0] https://nypost.com/2020/08/06/georgia-students-punished-over...
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/08/us/georgia-teen-photo-crowded...
[2] https://www.popsugar.com/family/Student-Punished-Sharing-Sch...
The question here is under what circumstances student speech can be regulated, not whether.
In no way is that the original or even modern purpose of schooling
The behavior of this young child warrants (at most!) a sit down with an authority figure to discuss the problematic elements. If this wasn’t her first lapse of judgment, maybe hand down a temporary suspension from the team or something similar.
The idea that this fiasco is somehow helping this kid is... I mean... come on now.
What is happening to us? I’m not even old and I feel like that old man yelling at people to get off my lawn.
The problem is you have these dying institutions riddled with power hungry sycophants who feel empowered with this wave of cancel culture.