LAWSUIT: Student suspended after posting memes

Read more: https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-high-school-student-sues-after-receiving-suspension-posting-campus-cat-meme

Today, a 17-year-old rising senior represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued his Tennessee public high school after the principal suspended him for posting memes lampooning the principal for being overly serious.

“The First Amendment bars public school employees from acting as a 24/7 board of censors,” said FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick. “As long as a student’s posts do not substantially disrupt school, what teens post on social media on their own time is between them and their parents, not the government.”

FIRE’s lawsuit names Tullahoma City Schools, Principal Jason Quick, and Assistant Principal Derrick Crutchfield as defendants and seeks to remove the suspension from the student’s record and halt enforcement of the school’s vague policies.

“Administrators cannot wield vague social media policies to punish nondisruptive, off-campus satire,” said FIRE attorney Harrison Rosenthal. “Principal Quick suspended a student over playful memes — but he can’t suspend the First Amendment.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

FIRE is assisted in this case by local counsel Darrick O’Dell of Spicer Rudstrom PLLC.