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A 17-year-old Tennessee highschool pupil is suing his college district and directors after he was suspended for creating and posting satirical memes directed at his principal on social media.
Based on the federal lawsuit filed on July 19, the unnamed pupil, who is about to start his senior yr at Tullahoma Excessive College, accuses the Tullahoma Metropolis College district, now-former Principal Jason Fast and Vice Principal Derrick Crutchfield of violating his First Modification proper to free speech after he was suspended for 3 days for posting the memes on Instagram.
Attorneys representing the college district and directors didn’t instantly reply to HuffPost’s request for remark.
“This case is a few thin-skinned highschool principal defying the First Modification and suspending a pupil for lampooning the principal on the coed’s Instagram web page although the posts triggered no disruption at college,” attorneys for the coed mentioned of their grievance.
The scholar posted three memes that featured Fast on his private Instagram account in 2022, whereas off campus and over summer time trip, in keeping with the lawsuit.
The satirical memes featured a picture of Fast holding a field of greens, with the textual content, “like a sister however not a sister <33,” an altered picture of Fast in a gown with cat ears and whiskers, and one together with his face positioned on a online game character being held by a cartoon fowl.
“The scholar supposed the pictures to be tongue-in-cheek commentary, gently ribbing a faculty administrator he perceived as humorless,” Conor Fitzpatrick, the lead lawyer representing the coed, mentioned in an announcement.
On Aug. 10, 2022, instantly after Crutchfield informed the coed he could be suspended for 5 days, the coed suffered from a panic assault and skilled sweating, shortness of breath and misplaced feeling in each arms, the grievance mentioned.
The suspension was later decreased to a few days after Crutchfield allegedly informed the coed he “reviewed” the social media publish and believed it to be a extra applicable punishment.
Within the assertion, Fitzpatrick and different attorneys working towards with the Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech advocacy group, mentioned the college directors couldn’t use imprecise social media insurance policies to punish off-campus acts.
“Principal Fast suspended a pupil over playful memes — however he can’t droop the First Modification,” FIRE lawyer Harrison Rosenthal mentioned within the assertion.
“So long as a pupil’s posts don’t considerably disrupt college, what teenagers publish on social media on their very own time is between them and their dad and mom, not the federal government,” Fitzpatrick added.
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