Tatro v. University of Minnesota
Cases
Case Overview
Amanda Tatro, a mortuary sciences student at the University of Minnesota, faced discipline for off-campus comments she posted on Facebook, which her school labeled as threatening despite their clearly protected and non-threatening nature. Worse, the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that her online expression "materially and substantially disrupted the work and discipline of the university," untenably applying the speech standard originally coined by the Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). Tinker, as we've argued many times before, is applicable to on-campus expression in the high school setting, and should not be used to regulate or punish the off-campus, online speech of an adult college student such as Amanda Tatro.
The amici brief filed by FIREand the SPLC argues that the lower court's ruling dangerously conflates these very different settings and, if upheld on appeal by the Minnesota Supreme Court, will present a significant threat to college students' freedom of speech. Our brief also argues that, as a public university bound to the fullest extent by the First Amendment, the University of Minnesota violated Tatro's free speech rights by punishing her expression.