https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/eff-arizona-federal-court-protect-public-school-students-surveillance-and Skip to main content * About + Contact + Press + People + Opportunities + EFF's 35th Anniversary * Issues + Free Speech + Privacy + Creativity and Innovation + Transparency + International + Security * Our Work + Deeplinks Blog + Press Releases + Events + Legal Cases + Whitepapers + Podcast + Annual Reports * Take Action + Action Center + Electronic Frontier Alliance + Volunteer * Tools + Privacy Badger + Surveillance Self-Defense + Certbot + Atlas of Surveillance + Cover Your Tracks + Street Level Surveillance + apkeep * Donate + Donate to EFF + Giving Societies + Shop + Sponsorships + Other Ways to Give + Membership FAQ * Donate + Donate to EFF + Shop + Other Ways to Give --------------------------------------------------------------------- Email updates on news, actions, and events in your area. Join EFF Lists * Copyright (CC BY) * Trademark * Privacy Policy * Thanks Electronic Frontier Foundation Donate Electronic Frontier Foundation * About + Contact + Press + People + Opportunities + EFF's 35th Anniversary * Issues + Free Speech + Privacy + Creativity and Innovation + Transparency + International + Security * Our Work + Deeplinks Blog + Press Releases + Events + Legal Cases + Whitepapers + Podcast + Annual Reports * Take Action + Action Center + Electronic Frontier Alliance + Volunteer * Tools + Privacy Badger + Surveillance Self-Defense + Certbot + Atlas of Surveillance + Cover Your Tracks + Street Level Surveillance + apkeep * Donate + Donate to EFF + Giving Societies + Shop + Sponsorships + Other Ways to Give + Membership FAQ * Donate + Donate to EFF + Shop + Other Ways to Give EFF to Arizona Federal Court: Protect Public School Students from Surveillance and Punishment for Off-Campus Speech DEEPLINKS BLOG By Sophia Cope November 26, 2025 3 students, one with a book, one with a laptop, one in a graduation hat, being watched by an eye. EFF to Arizona Federal Court: Protect Public School Students from Surveillance and Punishment for Off-Campus Speech Share It Share on Mastodon Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Copy link 3 students, one with a book, one with a laptop, one in a graduation hat, being watched by an eye. Legal Intern Alexandra Rhodes contributed to this blog post. EFF filed an amicus brief urging the Arizona District Court to protect public school students' freedom of speech and privacy by holding that the use of a school-issued laptop or email account does not categorically mean a student is "on campus." We argued that students need private digital spaces beyond their school's reach to speak freely, without the specter of constant school surveillance and punishment. Surveillance Software Exposed a Bad Joke Made in the Privacy of a Student's Home The case, Merrill v. Marana Unified School District, involves a Marana High School student who, while at home one morning before school started, asked his mother for advice about a bad grade he received on an English assignment. His mother said he should talk to his English teacher, so he opened his school-issued Google Chromebook and started drafting an email. The student then wrote a series of jokes in the draft email that he deleted each time. The last joke stated: "GANG GANG GIMME A BETTER GRADE OR I SHOOT UP DA SKOOL HOMIE," which he narrated out loud to his mother in a silly voice before deleting the draft and closing his computer. Within the hour, the student's mother received a phone call from the school principal, who said that Gaggle surveillance software had flagged a threat from her son and had sent along the screenshot of the draft email. The student's mother attempted to explain the situation and reassure the principal that there was no threat. Nevertheless, despite her reassurances and the student's lack of disciplinary record or history of violence, the student was ultimately suspended over the draft email--even though he was physically off campus at the time, before school hours, and had never sent the email. After the student's suspension was unsuccessfully challenged, the family sued the school district alleging infringement of the student's right to free speech under the First Amendment and violation of the student's right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Public School Students Have Greater First Amendment Protection for Off-Campus Speech The U.S. Supreme Court has addressed the First Amendment rights of public school students in a handful of cases. Most notably, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), the Court held that students may not be punished for their on-campus speech unless the speech "materially and substantially" disrupted the school day or invaded the rights of others. Decades later, in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. by and through Levy (2021), in which EFF filed a brief, the Court further held that schools have less leeway to regulate student speech when that speech occurs off campus. Importantly, the Court stated that schools should have a limited ability to punish off-campus speech because "from the student speaker's perspective, regulations of off-campus speech, when coupled with regulations of on-campus speech, include all the speech a student utters during the full 24-hour day." The Ninth Circuit has further held that off-campus speech is only punishable if it bears a "sufficient nexus" to the school and poses a credible threat of violence. In this case, therefore, the extent of the school district's authority to regulate student speech is tied to whether the high schooler was on or off campus at the time of the speech. The student here was at home and thus physically off campus when he wrote the joke in question; he wrote the draft before school hours; and the joke was not emailed to anyone on campus or anyone associated with the campus. Yet the school district is arguing that his use of a school-issued Google Chromebook and Google Workspace for Education account (including the email account) made his speech--and makes all student speech--automatically "on campus" for purposes of justifying punishment under the First Amendment. Schools Provide Students with Valuable Digital Tools--But Also Subject Them to Surveillance EFF supports the plaintiffs' argument that the student's speech was "off campus," did not bear a sufficient nexus to the school, and was not a credible threat. In our amicus brief, we urged the trial court at minimum to reject a rule that the use of a school-issued device or cloud account always makes a student's speech "on campus." Our amicus brief supports the plaintiffs' First Amendment arguments through the lens of surveillance, emphasizing that digital speech and digital privacy are inextricably linked. As we explained, Marana Unified School District, like many schools and districts across the country, offers students free Google Chromebooks and requires them to have an online Google Account to access the various cloud apps in Google Workspace for Education, including the Gmail app. Marana Unified School District also uses three surveillance technologies that are integrated into Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education: Gaggle, GoGuardian, and Securly. These surveillance technologies collectively can monitor virtually everything students do on their laptops and online, from the emails and documents they write (or even just draft) to the websites they visit. School Digital Surveillance Chills Student Speech and Further Harms Students In our amicus brief, we made four main arguments against a blanket rule that categorizes any use of a school-issued device or cloud account as "on campus," even if the student is geographically off campus or outside of school hours. First, we pointed out that such a rule will result in students having no reprieve from school authority, which runs counter to the Supreme Court's admonition in Mahanoy not to regulate "all the speech a student utters during the full 24-hour day." There must be some place that is "off campus" for public school students even when using digital tools provided by schools, otherwise schools will reach too far into students' lives. Second, we urged the court to reject such an "on campus" rule to mitigate the chilling effect of digital surveillance on students' freedom of speech--that is, the risk that students will self-censor and choose not to express themselves in certain ways or access certain information that may be disfavored by school officials. If students know that no matter where they are or what they are doing with their Chromebooks and Google Accounts, the school is watching and the school has greater legal authority to punish them because they are always "on campus," students will undoubtedly curb their speech. Third, we argued that such an "on campus" rule will exacerbate existing inequities in public schools among students of different socio-economic backgrounds. It would distinctly disadvantage lower-income students who are more likely to rely on school-issued devices because their families cannot afford a personal laptop or tablet. This creates a "pay for privacy" scheme: lower-income students are subject to greater school-directed surveillance and related discipline for digital speech, while wealthier students can limit surveillance by using personal laptops and email accounts, enabling them to have more robust free speech protections. Fourth, such an "on campus" rule will incentivize public schools to continue eroding student privacy by subjecting them to near constant digital surveillance. The student surveillance technologies schools use are notoriously privacy invasive and inaccurate, causing various harms to students--including unnecessary investigations and discipline, disclosure of sensitive information, and frustrated learning. We urge the Arizona District Court to protect public school students' freedom of speech and privacy by rejecting this approach to school-managed technology. As we said in our brief, students, especially high schoolers, need some sphere of digital autonomy, free of surveillance, judgment, and punishment, as much as anyone else--to express themselves, to develop their identities, to learn and explore, to be silly or crude, and even to make mistakes. Related Issues Student Privacy Free Speech Tags Google Gaggle GoGuardian Securly Share It Share on Mastodon Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Copy link Related Updates Privacy Badger sitting at a desk at school Deeplinks Blog by Lena Cohen | September 4, 2025 From Libraries to Schools: Why Organizations Should Install Privacy Badger In an era of pervasive online surveillance, organizations have an important role to play in protecting their communities' privacy. Schools, libraries, and other organizations can make private browsing the norm by deploying Privacy Badger on their computers. [student-privacy-og] Deeplinks Blog by Paige Collings | December 18, 2024 Australia Banning Kids from Social Media Does More Harm Than Good Age verification systems are surveillance systems that threaten everyone's privacy and anonymity. But Australia's government recently decided to ignore these dangers, passing a vague, sweeping piece of age verification legislation after giving only a day for comments. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024,... [student-privacy-social] Deeplinks Blog by Jason Kelley, Molly Buckley | December 12, 2024 X's Last-Minute Update to the Kids Online Safety Act Still Fails to Protect Kids--or Adults--Online Late last week, the Senate released yet another version of the Kids Online Safety Act, written, reportedly, with the assistance of X CEO Linda Yaccarino in a flawed attempt to address the critical free speech issues inherent in the bill. This last minute draft remains, at its core, an unconstitutional... [mobile-privacy] Deeplinks Blog by Guest Author, Erica Portnoy | October 1, 2024 How to Stop Advertisers From Tracking Your Teen Across the Internet When children turn 13, they age out of the data protections provided by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Then, they become targets for data collection from data brokers that collect their information from social media apps, shopping history, location tracking services, and more. [og-studentprivacygoogle] Deeplinks Blog by Jason Kelley, Aaron Mackey | September 17, 2024 The New U.S. House Version of KOSA Doesn't Fix Its Biggest Problems An amended version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) that is being considered this week in the U.S. House is still a dangerous online censorship bill that contains many of the same fundamental problems of a similar version the Senate passed in July. The changes to the House... A student looks at a computer with an eye looking back at the student, under a dark cloud with arms. Deeplinks Blog by Bill Budington | September 6, 2024 School Monitoring Software Sacrifices Student Privacy for Unproven Promises of Safety Imagine your search terms, key-strokes, private chats and photographs are being monitored every time they are sent. Millions of students across the country don't have to imagine this deep surveillance of their most private communications: it's a reality that comes with their school districts' decision to install AI-powered monitoring software... 2 protestors in silhouette on retro starburst background Deeplinks Blog by Rory Mir, Thorin Klosowski, Christian Romero | June 7, 2024 Surveillance Defense for Campus Protests The recent wave of protests calling for peace in Palestine have been met with unwarranted and aggressive suppression from law enforcement, universities, and other bad actors. It's clear that the changing role of surveillance on college campuses exacerbates the dangers faced by all of the communities colleges... young EFF'ers show phones with security icons Deeplinks Blog by Jason Kelley | March 15, 2024 Thousands of Young People Told Us Why the Kids Online Safety Act Will Be Harmful to Minors With KOSA passed, the information i can access as a minor will be limited and censored, under the guise of "protecting me", which is the responsibility of my parents, NOT the government. I have learned so much about the world and about myself through social media, and without the diverse... [student-privacy-og] Deeplinks Blog by Aaron Mackey, Jason Kelley | March 15, 2024 Analyzing KOSA's Constitutional Problems In Depth Why EFF Does Not Think Recent Changes Ameliorate KOSA's Censorship The latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) did not change our critical view of the legislation. The changes have led some organizations to drop their opposition to the bill, but we still believe it is a... [student-privacy-og] Deeplinks Blog by Jason Kelley, Aaron Mackey, Joe Mullin | February 15, 2024 Don't Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act The authors of the dangerous Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) unveiled an amended version this week, but it's still an unconstitutional censorship bill that continues to empower state officials to target services and online content they do not like. Share on MastodonShare on XShare on Facebook Related Issues Student Privacy Free Speech Related Tags Google Gaggle GoGuardian Securly Back to top EFF Home Follow EFF: * mastodon * facebook * instagram * x * Blue Sky * youtube * flicker * linkedin * tiktok * threads Check out our 4-star rating on Charity Navigator. 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