The Original Understanding of the First Amendment in Public Schools

Nicole Stelle Garnett*

Three times in the past five years, the U.S. Supreme Court has confronted the question of how to apply the First Amendment in the context of public schools. In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., the Court held that a public school violated a student’s free speech rights when it suspended her from the cheerleading team for posting messages on social media that contained profanity and criticized her team and coach.¹ In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Court held that a school district violated a high school football coach’s free exercise and free speech rights when it terminated him for praying at the fifty-yard line after games.² And, most recently, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court held that the Montgomery County, Maryland, public schools violated the free exercise rights of public-school parents by refusing to accommodate their requests that their children be excused from participating in the district’s LGBT curriculum for young children.³

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© 2026 Nicole Stelle Garnett. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may reproduce and distribute copies of this Essay in any format at or below cost, for educational purposes, so long as each copy identifies the author, provides a citation to the Notre Dame Law Review, and includes this provision in the copyright notice.

* John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School. I am indebted to Cameron Grinnell for exceptional research assistance. I received helpful feedback on this Essay at the Notre Dame Law Review’s Symposium, “Constructing the Whole First Amendment: Examining the Roles of Text, Doctrine, and History,” on October 31, 2025.

1 Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L., 141 S. Ct. 2038, 2049 (2021).

2 Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist., 142 S. Ct. 2407, 2415–16 (2022).

3 Mahmoud v. Taylor, 145 S. Ct. 2332, 2353 (2025).