Balancing free speech and student safety 

When thinking about how to respond to troublesome student speech, educators have looked, for the last 50 years, to Tinker v. Des Moines (U.S. S.Ct. 1969), the case that gave us the famous language: Students do not “shed their constitutional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate.” According to the Court, student speech can be restricted only if educators can “reasonably forecast that the speech would cause material and substantial disruption” to the school. 

But what about free speech outside the schoolhouse gate? Generally, courts have extended the Tinker standard to mean that if any speech (wherever it occurs) presents a material and substantial disruption to the school, it can be suppressed (in advance) or disciplined (after the fact). That is, if the school can reasonably forecast that the speech will cause a material and substantial disruption to the school, it can control it (or at least discipline students for it) even if it takes place outside of the school and school-sponsored activities. 

Further, in a line of cases dealing with speech that presents a threat to the safety of the school community, the Court has ventured beyond the Tinker analysis.