ACLU sues NJ school that suspended kids for gun Snapchat posts
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LACEY — A lawsuit could become a teaching moment for high school officials who suspended two students last year for sharing pictures of firearms on their personal social media accounts.The students were punished last March after posting photos of their legally owned guns at a shooting range. One of the posts was captioned “hot stuff” and “If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, you know where to go.”The Snapchat posts disappear after 24 hours and can only be seen by followers. But high school officials got involved after a parent called the school to report that the Snapchat posts had made their child nervous, the lawsuit says.The lawsuit, filed in federal district court Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the firm Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, says the school had no right to discipline the students.“There was no threat. No unlawful behavior whatsoever. That is classic speech,” said Alexander Shalom, a senior supervising attorney for the ACLU-NJ. “They communicated something to their friends off of school grounds, off of school property, off of school time and the school simply doesn’t have the authority to discipline them for what they’re doing outside of school time.”The suspension caused a public stir last year for the district. Parents packed a school board meeting[1] to protest a policy that they believed violated students' First and Second Amendment rights."Where did we give up that right to be a parent?" one resident asked.[2]Around the same time, the district amended its student handbook to delete a rule[3] that seemed to prohibit students from handling firearms off school grounds. The Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs — a New Jersey NRA chapter — threatened to sue the district over this policy, which district officials said they had intended to change before the legal threat.Another parent last
