A 13-year-old boy in a small Missouri school district recently learned a harsh lesson about the limits of free expression in America’s public schools. His offense? Gluing Dr. Pepper cans into the shape of a rifle and posting a picture of his creation on his personal Snapchat account over the weekend. The Mountain View-Birch Tree R-III School District responded by suspending the boy (we’ll call him W.G.) for three days, demanding to search his belongings, and permanently branding the incident as “cyberbullying” in his school record.
What makes this case particularly alarming is what the school district openly acknowledged: The post was created entirely off-campus, involved no school technology or property, contained no threats or violent language, and was never intended to intimidate anyone. The district even admitted its investigation found “no credible evidence of any danger.” Yet administrators still chose to punish the student because, in their words, the post “caused fear to at least one student.”
“This is unconscionable—my son never hurt or threatened a single person. Instead of using common sense, our own school district treated my child like a criminal for arranging empty soda cans in a way they didn’t like,” says W.G.’s mom, Riley Grunden. “What happened to his First Amendment rights?”
As members of the Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network of pro bono attorneys, we’re suing the school district to vindicate her son’s free expression rights. But this case represents a growing national crisis where school districts are increasingly punishing students for constitutionally protected social media activity that bears no connection to school safety. Across the country, we’re seeing a disturbing pattern of schools acting as round-the-clock speech police, stretching their authority far beyond constitutional limits and chilling student expression in the process.
The constitutional violations in this case are clear. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. established that schools have limited authority to regulate off-campus speech. The Court specifically warned against allowing schools to become “24/7 censors” of student expression. Moreover, the Court’s 2023 decision in Counterman v. Colorado reinforced that the government cannot punish speech as a “true threat” without evidence the speaker could have anticipated that his expression would be perceived as threatening another person. Neither standard was met here—the student was punished solely because someone else misinterpreted his artistic expression.
Missouri’s Constitution provides even stronger protections for free speech than the First Amendment. Article I, Section 8 guarantees every person’s right to “communicate whatever he will on any subject,” making it clear that creative expression like this soda can art project falls squarely within protected activity. Furthermore, the school district’s vague “cyberbullying” policy, which allows punishment for any speech that might “negatively impact the educational environment,” fails to provide the clear boundaries required by constitutional due process.
We are pursuing this case to turn the tide against a rising national wave of schools overreaching their proper authority when it comes to policing and punishing off-campus student expression. From suspensions for posting memes to punishments for fictional creative writing, schools are increasingly treating ordinary adolescent communication as grounds for disciplinary action. The consequences extend far beyond individual cases. Each unjust punishment sends a message to all students that their constitutional rights disappear the moment they log onto social media.
We’re fighting to have W.G.’s record cleared and to prevent this kind of constitutional violation from happening to other students. But the broader solution requires cultural change. Schools must stop viewing every adolescent expression through the lens of potential threat assessment and start respecting the constitutional rights of the students they serve. The freedom to express oneself creatively—whether through art, humor, or political speech—is too fundamental to surrender to school administrators’ overbroad interpretations of what might make someone uncomfortable.
As this case moves forward, it will test whether the constitutional protections established in Mahanoy and Counterman have real meaning for students nationwide. The outcome will determine whether schools can continue stretching their authority to punish whatever expression they subjectively find concerning, or whether the courts will reaffirm that the First Amendment doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse gate—or the smartphone screen.
You can read the lawsuit here.
Dave Roland is the Director of Litigation and Co-Founder of the Freedom Center of Missouri. Marc Ellinger and Stephanie Bell are partners at the Missouri-based firm Ellinger Bell. Together, they are representing W.G.’s rights.
