28 February 2022 

GRANDVIEW, Mo. – Henry Ford once said, “Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” So that is precisely why a group of retired teachers gathered in Grandview to learn about Missouri’s court system.

Judge Alok Ahuja – a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District – spoke with the 25 teachers at the Grandview school district’s offices. And they took to the reversal of roles well, attentively working their way through a timely presentation titled “The First Amendment, Schools and Students in the Age of Social Media.”

“It was a delight to speak with these teachers,” Ahuja said. “They were very engaged, and they asked great questions.”

The presentation focuses on the extent to which the First Amendment protects students’ use of social media and whether schools should be able to regulate their students’ off-campus speech. It focuses on three key cases: the United States Supreme Court’s 1969 decision in Tinker v. Des Moines; the Eighth Circuit appeals court’s 2012 decision in S.J.W. v. Lee’s Summit; and the United States Supreme Court’s decision from last summer in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., involving a cheerleader’s post on Snapchat. 

It is one of 20 presentations available from the Supreme Court of Missouri’s civic education committee. To schedule a judicial speaker and presentation, select a presentation from https://www.courts.mo.gov/CivicEducation/presentations/ and click on the “Request this Presentation” link.