If a student walked into a high school class wearing a T-shirt protesting the government’s harsh immigration policies, the First Amendment would protect their “speech.”  But if they wrote a story in the school newspaper condemning the school board for not protecting diversity rules, the newspaper would likely be shut down.

If a student advocated the growing and selling of marijuana — illegal for a teenager — the student might be suspended.  But if they cursed and mocked a physical education teacher — on their own computer — for not choosing them for the cheerleading squad, their speech would be protected.

So there you have it — a mixed message on First Amendment protections for 15.8 million young people in public high schools who now have the summer off. But in the fall, or soon enough, a new test will arise. As states rush to ban the use of mobile phones in schools, the question will be: Do students more than ever have the need and constitutional right to receive information on their mobile devices?

An important question for both educators and the students who report being online "almost constantly." Teens in 2025 spend 8 hours and 39 minutes per day on smartphones and devices. A day! And statistics reveal they spend 90 minutes a day online DURING school.

No wonder an author of a best-selling book calls them “the anxious generation,” battered by post-COVID-19 blues alongside jarring and troubling episodes on social media. Would a school phone ban help?

That might be a hard sell.  The two most important Supreme Court decisions — Tinker v. Des Moines School District in 1969 and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier in 1988 — emphasize that........

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