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A Post-Morse Framework For Students' Potentially Hurtful Speech (Religious And Otherwise), Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I weave together strands from Tinker, Fraser, and Morse, as well as from lower court decisions taking varying approaches to this issue, to propose a new standard for student speech that is potentially hurtful to other students. This approach encompasses, without being limited to, speech that is religiously-motivated in nature. I argue that student speech that is hurtful to other students (whether religiously-motivated or not) should first be divided into two categories: (1) speech that identifies particular students for attack; and (2) speech, such as the message on Harper's T-shirt, that expresses a general opinion without being …