In the second example, the school is able to take action, but only because the students recorded the teacher in her classroom during school hours. The teacher wasn’t aware she was being filmed, but others in the classroom were. The students doing the recording were clowning around and even stood behind the teacher at one point making faces and “rabbit ears” behind the teacher’s head. Had the students filmed the teacher in the local grocery store and posted that footage to YouTube, the students’ speech likely would have been protected.

Students have the right to criticize their teachers, whether by uploading video to YouTube, posting comments to RateMyTeachers.com, or just yelling from their front porches. But here, the school argues, suspending the students was appropriate because the suspensions had nothing to do with student speech: the students were not suspended for criticizing the teacher, but because they violated a school policy prohibiting recording devices in class and caused a “material disruption to class work,” one of the few exceptions to student free speech. So far, the trial court has been persuaded by the school’s argument, but the case could be appealed.

The third example highlights another exception to student free speech. Student speech is not protected when it “involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.” Threats clearly fall within this exception. When threats or references to violence are involved, schools may take action against students, even if the student speech takes place off campus and outside of school hours.