Leroy v. Livingston Manor School District

Docket number: 24-1241 (2d Cir.)

The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute (HLLI) filed an appeal over a school district’s unconstitutional punishment of a high school student for his social media post.

Alongside co-counsel Jerome Dorfman, HLLI is helping represent Case Leroy, an ex-student of Livingston Manor School District in New York, challenge a district court’s approval of his suspension from school and all related activities for a picture he and his friends took and briefly posted off campus and outside of school hours.

The post at issue occurred in Spring of 2021, Leroy’s senior year, when Leroy and his friends were driving around and hanging out after football practice. While Leroy lay on the ground in the parking lot of a friend’s sister’s private dance lessons, another friend knelt on his back and a third took a picture. Leroy posted the picture to Snapchat with the caption “Cops got another.” After receiving backlash from friends on Snapchat that the picture appeared to reference George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, Leroy quickly deleted the picture. Nonetheless, the school district took it upon themselves to quickly and severely punish Leroy, suspending him indefinitely from school and all extracurriculars, including his graduation ceremony, even though the picture was taken off school property, after school hours, and in no way referenced the school.

Under First Amendment law, Leroy’s speech activity was plainly outside the authority of the school’s purview, regardless of connotations others wrongly derived from it. And a New York state court agreed, enjoining Leroy’s suspension and allowing him to participate in his graduation ceremony. Unsatisfied and undeterred, the school district removed the case to federal court and the Southern District of New York entered judgment for the school district without oral argument.

On August 15, 2024, HLLI and Dorfman filed their opening brief seeking reversal of the district court’s order. Its brief argues that First Amendment law as articulated in Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L., 594 U.S. 180 (2021), and applicable prior cases shows the school district lacks any authority over student speech activity that occurs outside of school campus or school-sanctioned activities and isn’t otherwise directed at the school. Further, even if the school district’s disciplinary authority could reach Leroy’s speech, the manner in which it did so evidenced its viewpoint discriminatory intent, which independently violates First Amendment principles.

Numerous free speech organizations and scholars filed amicus briefs in support of Leroy, HLLI, and Dorfman, including preeminent First Amendment scholar Professor Eugene Volokh, the Liberty Justice Center, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Foundation for Individual Rights and Free Expression (FIRE), the National Coalition Against Censorship, Ari Cohn, Free Speech Counsel at Tech Freedom, Roy S. Gutterman, Director of the Newhouse School at Syracuse University’s Tully Center for Free Speech, Heather E. Murray, Local Journalism Project Managing Attorney at Cornell Law School’s First Amendment Clinic, and Jonathan Peters, Chair of the Department of Journalism and faculty member at the University of Georgia’s School of Law.

Case Documents