Student Suspended For 23 Days, Questioned by Police for Joking About Bomb Threat on Facebook

A ninth-grader at a high school
in Springettsbury, Pennsylvania, was suspended for 10 days, and
then an additional 13 days, for joking in a Facebook post about a
bomb threat. The offending post, in its entirety, was: “Plot twist:
They don’t find the bomb and it goes off tomorrow.” A lawsuit by
the student’s family, which does not name the student, claims he
put the Facebook post up after coming home and that it was his
“expression of anxiety regarding the bomb threat and a misplaced
attempt at humor,”
as reported by PennLive.com. Nevertheless, school district
administrators found the comment neither humorous nor outside their
purview. The local news website reports:

According to the suit, after learning of the post
school officials contacted the boy’s father and tracked down the
student at an away football game at Red Lion High School.

After meeting with the teen at the game, Superintendent Michael
Snell imposed a 10-day suspension, pending further investigation,
the suit states. Two weeks later, following a disciplinary hearing,
the teen was hit with an additional 13-day suspension.

He also was questioned by Springettsbury Township police, who did
not file criminal charges, according to the suit.

Kudos to the cops, at least, for recognizing no crime was
committed there; that’s not
always
a given. The family argues in their lawsuit that the school
violated their son’s constitutional rights, and that “vague and
over broad policies prohibit and chill speech that is protected by
the First Amendment.” And there ought to be zero tolerance for
that.