Supreme Court sides with Pennsylvania cheerleader punished for Snapchat post
CBSN
Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a Pennsylvania cheerleader punished for a vulgar message shared on Snapchat, with the justices ruling the school violated the student's First Amendment rights when it disciplined her for the off-campus rant.
The high court rule 8-1 in favor of the cheerleader, Brandi Levy, with Justice Stephen Breyer writing the majority opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. The dispute centered around a message Levy posted to Snapchat on a Saturday in 2017 after learning she didn't make her school's varsity cheerleading team as a rising sophomore. In an act of frustration, Levy, then 14 and a freshman in the Mahanoy Area School District, shared with her 250 followers a self-deleting Snapchat of her and a friend raising their middle fingers, captioned with "f**k school f**k softball f**k cheer f**k everything."Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.
The knock at the door came at nighttime on Mother's Day 2008 in Oregon, where Jessica Ellis' parents lived. It was around 9:20 p.m. and his wife, Linda, was already in bed; her father Steve Ellis told CBS News, that he thought someone let their animals out — but two soldiers in Class A uniforms were standing at the door.