— In Michigan, the United States District Court held that the suspension and expulsion of a high school student did not violate his First Amendment rights. The case centers around a statement the student made at school regarding a recent shooting at another high school in Michigan. The student was heard by his teacher saying to a classmate, “if you don’t shut up I will shoot this place up like Oxford.” The Oxford reference was in relation to a campus shooting eight days earlier, where an Oxford High School student “brought a 9mm handgun to school and opened fire, killing four students and injuring seven others.” The court applied the rule of law from the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District: a student’s speech is not protected under the First Amendment if it “might reasonably have led school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” This rule of law translates into proactive authority for school officials. The court opined, “(s)chool officials may restrict the student’s speech as long as the restriction is motivated by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” Finally, the court reasoned that, “(i)n assessing the reasonableness of a school official’s decision to restrict the student’s speech, this Court considers temporal factors and recent events, and affords deference to the professional knowledge and experience of school administrators.” Therefore, the court dismissed the case, stating that, “the School District Defendants reasonably believed (the student’s) statement could substantially disrupt Huron High School’s activities. (The student) made the statement at issue just eight days after the Oxford High School shooting. In the aftermath of this shooting, schools—especially in Michigan—were justifiably sensitive to threats or comments suggesting violence.” Reedy v. Huron School District, No. 2:23-CV-10221, 2025 WL 400226 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 31, 2025)
— Nationally, the Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would diminish the U.S. Department of Education by shutting down all functions that are not written explicitly into codified laws.
— In Indiana, House Bill 1637 proposes a uniform approach to regulating school safety. Its provisions create the Office of School Safety, placing it under the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. “The mission is to make school safety more efficient.”
— In Georgia, the Georgia legislature is introducing school-safety legislation that “calls for improvements in information sharing among schools through a new anonymous app, increases penalties for those who make terroristic threats, and provides tax incentives to encourage gun owners to purchase firearm safety storage devices.”