The NPR Politics Podcast - "Mean Girls" Meets The Supreme Court Pt. II: SCOTUS Supports Student Free Speech

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

The Supreme Court sided with a student who was penalized after cussing out her school on Snapchat. Advocates of free speech are calling it a big win for students. Listen to our earlier breakdown of the case.Plus, violent crime is on the rise throughout the country, and the Biden administration has unveiled its plan to combat the problem. This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and justice correspondent Ryan Lucas.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Shashank. My wife and I work as physicians in Little Rock, Arkansas. Last week, we became legal permanent residents of the United States. This show was recorded at 1.24 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, June 23rd. Things may change by the time you hear this, but we will still be celebrating our newfound place in this country. Okay, here's the show. That's so heartwarming. Congratulations to you. What a great story. Congratulations. And my husband's from Arkansas, so that's a great place to be.

Well, hey there, it is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent. And we're going to start today's show with an update on a Supreme Court case we highlighted a couple of months ago in our ongoing series called The Docket. In an eight to one decision, the Supreme Court sided with a high school cheerleader who cussed out her cheer squad on Snapchat when she didn't get a position on the team. So, Carrie, I guess this means that using the F-bomb is now certifiably protected by the First Amendment, no matter your age, no matter your school?

I would not go that far, Asma. You know, basically what the court majority said here is that schools can, public schools, can police some speech by students, even if it's off campus, basically leaving an opening for things like bullying and harassment against students by other students. So you certainly should not use the F-bomb against another student if you're in a public school or maybe even off campus in a public school. But what the court really ruled here is that this school district in Pennsylvania was out of line, that it went too far, and that it violated the free speech and First Amendment rights

of this high school cheerleader at the time, Brandy Levy, by barring her from participating on the cheer squad for the upcoming year after she used the F-bomb in a couple of Snapchat messages. And so, Carrie, this follows precedent from student free speech cases before, and I think I remember from taking a few law classes in college, that there have been a lot of cases about how much students can say what they have the right to say. Schools do have a right to limit speech from students, but it's only if it disrupts the school, it disrupts the classroom, right? Well, what the court found in this case is that there was a little bit of reaction to

these Snapchat messages. You know, those are supposed to expire. But what happened is that somebody else took a photo of a screenshot. A screenshot? Yeah, took a screenshot. There's some drama there. This case is filled with drama, filled with drama start to finish. And so, you know, there was obviously chatter at the school. Some of the cheerleaders went to the coaches and were unhappy about it. And according to the court opinion, there was some discussion in algebra class for a little while about this. But Justice Breyer, Justice Stephen Breyer, in the majority opinion here for the Supreme Court found that didn't pose the kind of substantial disruption to classroom activity or school activity that would justify infringing a student's free speech rights, especially since she did this Snapchat message

when she was at a convenience store off campus, and she didn't even mention the school's name. So Carrie, one more question about this case. You know, what kinds of implications does this ruling have beyond just the case of this one cheerleader? What should we take away from it for other students in other places? Yeah, the court majority avoided a really broad pronouncement about what counts as off-campus speech and where exactly to draw the line, especially as it will matter to you both as parents. We've just been through this lengthy experiment in online learning, and so those lines can be blurred, especially when you're doing a lot of activity online from your house or the library or something. But First Amendment advocates are still counting this as a really big win. The American Civil Liberties Union says if the court had

accepted the argument of the Pennsylvania School District, it would have put in danger all kinds of speech by young people, including some of their opinions on politics or school operations or just general frustrations. And as a former teenager, I can tell you I had a lot of general frustrations at the time. And it's good that sometimes you can express those frustrations. And we did hear from Brandi Levy, the former cheerleader today. She's now a freshman in college and she said the school went too far. She's really glad the Supreme Court agreed with her. And another ruling from the Supreme Court that came out today, the Supreme Court restricted police powers when entering a

home without a warrant. What should people know about this decision? And how much will this impact people who are, you know, dealing with the police in their homes? Okay, so Aisha, full disclosure, I wanted to talk about this case a little just because I want to say the words hot pursuit. As a kid who grew up watching cop shows and chips and stuff like that, I'm dating myself. I like using the expression hot pursuit. What the court said here in a majority opinion by Justice Elena Kagan is that there are some times when a law enforcement officer is trying to pursue somebody who appears to have broken the law and who is fleeing the scene, that it would be justified to enter their home without a warrant, without a court-approved warrant. But this particular case was not one of

them. This was a kind of a wild case. A guy was driving down a deserted highway late at night. He was blasting the radio and periodically honking his horn. And the cop flashed his lights, wanted the guy to pull over. Instead, the guy drove into his garage and exited the car. The cop went into the garage, started asking the guy questions, and performed a field sobriety test, which he said the guy failed. And the court found here that that was not enough, that was not significant enough, or what the court calls an exigent circumstance that would allow a law enforcement officer to enter somebody's home without a warrant. So, Carrie, does that mean that you can essentially flee from the police and go to your house and they would not be able to track you down? Justice Kagan and the majority here said in most cases,

law enforcement would be able to proceed without a warrant. But the circumstances of this particular case, which involved such a minor crime at the time the issue was violating a noise ordinance by honking your horn too loud and blasting the radio in the middle of the night, that was not enough, she said. Well, speaking of crime, that actually brings us to our next topic and how the Biden administration intends to confront the issue. But first, Carrie, we are going to have to say goodbye to you for now. Thank you so much for joining. Talk to you soon. Thanks. All right. And we will be right back. An internal investigation found that a cop with the California Highway Patrol

sexually harassed 21 women. But those findings were kept secret until a new state transparency law passed. We dug through hours of tapes to find out what happens to officers who cross the line. Listen to On Our Watch, a podcast from NPR and KQED. And we're back. And we're joined now by another one of our super correspondents covering the Justice Department. That's Ryan Lucas. Hey, Ryan. Hey there.

So the backdrop here is that a number of cities across the country are experiencing an uptick in violent crimes, particularly gun violence. And today, the Biden administration is unveiling its crime prevention strategy. It's multifaceted. So Ayesha, I want to start with you. What stood out to you in the White House's plans? So the big thing that they want to do is they want to crack down on gun sellers who break federal laws. They're going to have this zero tolerance policy. The other things that they are trying to do is they want to allow more support or give more support for local law enforcement to respond to any increases in crime over the summer. And they also want more employment opportunities over the summer for teens and young people who

can get into trouble if they don't have anything to do over the summer. In addition, they want to help people who have been to prison or who have criminal records to be able to get when they get back into society, get back into their community, to thrive, to get jobs, to get housing, all of those things that can be very as they're saying, they want to allow leftover funds from COVID relief to be used to hire additional police officers and to pay out overtime. And also, it could be used to fund some of those employment opportunities for young people over the summer. You know, that detail about allowing local communities to use COVID relief aid to hire more police officers is fascinating to me. I mean, just given the context of how much we heard about these calls for, quote officers is just really different context from what we've been hearing from some Democrats last year. And Biden never supported defunding the police system. That is correct.

And this is so this is in line with that. And so, Ryan, I want to bring you into the conversation as well. The Department of Justice will be involved in this overall strategy. What does the Biden White House see for the DOJ in terms of how to tackle crime here? conversation as well. The Department of Justice will be involved in this overall strategy. What does the Biden White House see for the DOJ in terms of how to tackle crime here? Well, the Justice Department actually announced kind of in tandem with this White House announcement that it was launching what it calls firearms trafficking strike forces in an effort to kind of basically cut crime by going after illegal gun trafficking in particular areas.

Now, this is starting in five metropolitan areas, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. And it's focusing, from what the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said when she made this announcement, it's focusing on where guns are originating, where they're being used in crime, where they're going, and then prosecutors, investigators are supposed to go after the entire network. So it's not just about prosecuting the shooter in a crime. It's about going after the whole network that kind of stands behind that. You know, we've been talking about the policies here, but there's certainly the politics of this conversation. And crime is a hot button political issue. It's an issue that, frankly, some political analysts tell me that Republicans want to exploit ahead of the midterms because they feel like they can paint Democrats as being weak on crime. And so, you know, seeing

what the Biden White House is doing today, part of me feels like they are trying to get ahead of the issue before it becomes too much of a political liability for them. Yeah, Republicans have successfully, you know, used this rhetoric of law and order, you know, trying to accuse Democrats of being soft on crime. They have done that successfully in the past. Now, I will say it does seem, because obviously you had former President Trump who ran on this law and order message. It didn't seem like it really worked that well for him. That might've been specific to him.

But it's unclear how effective that will be in this day and age. It's not 1965. It's not 1975. And even as crime is on the rise in certain metropolitan cities, it's still nowhere near the levels that it was like in, you know, the 70s, 80s. Am I right, Ryan, at that? Or are we approaching those levels again? We are not anywhere near the levels that we were when crime spiked in the early 90s. But do people have the memory of that? A lot of people don't remember quite how violent that period was in America's cities. But that doesn't change the fact that there has been more than an uptick. There has been a large increase in crime from 2019 into 2020. There were almost 2,000 more homicides in 2020 than in 2019 in around 60 or 70 major American cities. That is a massive number. Chicago, one example, saw 276 more homicides in 2020 than in 2019. Milwaukee, almost double the number. And initial data from 2021 indicates that

that trend is continuing, unfortunately. And it's something that the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco mentioned in her remarks the other day. They are aware of this. It is, she said, serious. It's staggering. It's sobering. And it's something that the Justice Department is going to focus on to try to make sure that this trend does not continue. All right.

Well, that is a wrap for today. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I also cover the White House. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.