Law Update

A Fine Line Between Dangerous

And Harmless Student Expression

As educators struggle to maintain safe schools, they are increasingly wary of student essays and artwork that depict violence. But two recent federal court rulings demonstrate that the line between potential threats to school safety and protected student speech is a tricky one to distinguish.

In a case from Washington state, a federal district judge ruled last month that a student’s poem about shooting his classmates to death and feeling no remorse was protected by the First Amendment. And a federal district judge in Kansas ruled that a school district violated a high school student’s right to free speech when it disciplined her for posting a work of art on a school wall that included the words...