— In Pennsylvania, the United States District Court refused to dismiss the lawsuit of a student who created at his home a computer-generated, tournament-style bracket that reflected voting by himself and a few friends regarding 64 girls, mostly classmates, to determine the two most liked or admired girls. Months later, another student discovered the activity on the Internet and disseminated it publicly. School discipline consisted of a written apology by the student who created the activity and punishment in the form of excluding him from speaking at the graduation ceremony. The court held that school officials may punish or censor student speech without offending the First Amendment when (1) the speech that is vulgar, lewd, or threatening; (2) the speech is related to the school curriculum; (3) when the speech would materially and substantially disrupt classwork and discipline in the school, or invade the rights of others. The court ruled that the off-campus speech was protected because it was not intended to harm, harass, or objectify anyone and was expected to remain private. The school discipline in revoking the position of the student as a speaker at graduation violated the First Amendment. Wang v Bethlehem Central School District
— In Congress, the Securing Our Schools Act of 2022 has been introduced. Under the provisions of the legislation, $15 billion is provided to double the number of school resource officers, $10 billion to hire 15,000 mental health professionals for middle and high schools and $2.56 billion for physical security improvements on school campuses.
— In Ohio, police officers from the Cincinnati Police Department will remain in the public schools. The Cincinnati Public Schools Board of Education voted to continue using school resource officers. The five-year contract outlines protocols for discipline, training, and policies. A member of the school board says of this decision, “we have some excellent SROs who are wonderful people dedicated to youth and preventing crime.”
— In Florida, a recent grand jury report found Duval County Public Schools officials failed to report over 2,000 crimes. A 2020 grand jury preliminary report first sounded the alarm, citing the district for underreporting crime statistics and gang activity.