2026年6月15日 / 美国东部时间上午10:42 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿讯—— 美国最高法院周一驳回一起言论自由纠纷，该纠纷源于印第安纳州一所高中拒绝允许一个由学生发起的反堕胎权利社团悬挂印有“断绝资助计划生育组织”字样的会议传单。
这起争议涉及学生言论自由权利的范围，以及学校限制被视为体现学校背书的言论的能力。下级法院曾支持学校的决定，而最高法院驳回此案意味着该判决将维持原判。
大法官塞缪尔·阿利托对最高法院的决定表示异议，称最高法院应当“厘清”1988年一项涉及监管学校赞助活动的判决与其他政府言论判决之间的关系。
这起案件可追溯至2021年，当时一名在法庭文件中以E.D.指代的新生在诺布尔斯维尔高中发起了“诺布尔斯维尔支持生命学生社团”，该社团是美国支持生命学生组织的分支。该社团是该校70多个由学生发起和领导的“非课程类”社团之一。
学校允许学生社团在公共区域的墙壁上悬挂宣传会议日期、时间和地点的传单，但必须获得学校管理人员的批准才能张贴。根据法庭文件，高中不允许海报包含被视为“政治性”或“具有破坏性”的内容。
在E.D.获得成立社团的批准后，她着手安排首次会议，并向学校副校长提交了两份拟议的传单，以告知学生聚会的相关信息。她从美国支持生命学生组织网站获取的传单模板印有学生举着标语的照片，标语内容为“断绝资助计划生育组织”和“我是支持生命的一代”。
副校长拒绝批准这些传单，并告知E.D.，传单只能包含社团名称以及会议地点、日期和时间的信息。E.D.在母亲丽莎·杜尔的陪同下随后与学校教务长就传单事宜进行了沟通，对方告知他们不得包含“断绝资助计划生育组织”这一表述。
随后，学校校长决定暂停诺布尔斯维尔支持生命学生社团的批准资格，理由是考虑到E.D.母亲的参与，该社团并非由学生主导和推动，且E.D.拒绝遵守会议传单的相关要求。该社团于2022年恢复资格并持续活跃。
E.D.的父母和诺布尔斯维尔支持生命学生社团对学校提起诉讼，称学校拒绝批准E.D.拟议的传单的行为侵犯了他们的第一修正案权利。
但联邦地区法院作出了有利于学校的判决，认为这些传单“可以合理地被认为带有学校的官方印记”。地区法院援引了最高法院1988年在“黑兹尔伍德学区诉库尔迈尔”案中的判决，当时最高法院裁定，学校可以“对学校赞助的表达活动中的学生言论的风格和内容行使编辑控制权，只要其行为与合法的教育关切合理相关”。
“对于进入诺布尔斯维尔高中观看体育赛事、学生音乐会、戏剧表演、家长会或其他任何活动的家长和其他公众成员来说，如果看到张贴在学校墙壁上的此类传单，他们会合理地将其中包含的任何政治信息错误地归因于学区或学校本身，”美国地区法官萨拉·埃文斯·巴克在2024年的判决中写道。
美国第七巡回上诉法院维持了地区法院的判决，认为学生、家长或学校访客可能会将这些传单视为体现学校的背书。
“这起案件并非关于容忍学生的私人言论，”法院认定，“恰恰相反，E.D.被允许穿着她的支持生命T恤上学，并在活动博览会上向学生分发传单。相反，这起案件涉及学校是否必须出借其资源（此处 literally 指其墙壁）——进而出借其权威——来传播学生的信息。”
此外，第七巡回上诉法院表示，学校限制传单中的政治内容旨在维持“对政治争议事项的中立性”。该小组发现，允许学校墙壁被相互对立的政治信息覆盖会“分散对学习事务的注意力”。
由保守派司法团体“联盟辩护基金”代理的E.D.向最高法院提起上诉。在向大法官提交的文件中，他们辩称最高法院1988年的判决已被学校和大学用于审查他们认为有争议的言论。
“这不可能是我们民主摇篮的正确规则，”原告写道，并补充称联邦上诉法院对学生言论保护的范围采取了不同的立场。在1969年具有里程碑意义的“廷克诉得梅因”案中，最高法院裁定学生不会“在校门口就丧失宪法规定的言论或表达自由权利”。
他们警告称，“公立学校和教育工作者越来越多地参与政治宣传和灌输，这增加了持不同政见者被审查的风险”。
但诺布尔斯维尔高中的律师辩称，这起案件并非关于学生在学校的言论，而是涉及学校“是否必须出借其墙壁供学生传播政治信息”。
他们在一份文件中写道，学生可以通过其他渠道自由表达他们的政治观点，但学校有权限制张贴在其墙壁上的材料中的政治内容。
Supreme Court turns away free speech case involving high school club’s “Defund Planned Parenthood” posters
June 15, 2026 / 10:42 AM EDT / CBS News
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a free speech clash arising from an Indiana high school’s decision not to allow a student-led anti-abortion rights group to hang meeting flyers that featured the message “Defund Planned Parenthood.”
The dispute involved the scope of students’ free speech rights and schools’ ability to restrict expression that could be viewed as reflecting their endorsement. A lower court had sided with the school, and the Supreme Court’s denial of the case leaves that decision intact.
Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision and said the high court should “clarify the relationship between” a 1988 decision involving the regulation of school-sponsored activities and its other government-speech decisions.
The case dates back to 2021, when a freshman identified in court papers as E.D. launched Noblesville Students for Life, a chapter of Students for Life of America, at Noblesville High School. The club was among more than 70 “noncurriculum based” clubs at the school that are initiated and led by students.
The school allows the student clubs to hang flyers advertising meeting dates, times and locations on the walls in common areas, but they must receive approval from a school administrator to be posted. The high school does not allow the posters to include content deemed “political” or “disruptive,” according to court filings.
After E.D. received approval to form the club, she took steps to schedule an initial meeting and submitted to the school’s assistant principal two proposed flyers to inform students of the gathering. The template posters, which she obtained from the Students for Life of America website, featured photos of students holding signs that read “Defund Planned Parenthood” and “I am the Pro-Life Generation.”
The assistant principal denied approval of the posters and told E.D. that they should only include the club’s name and information about the meeting location, date and time. E.D., accompanied by her mother, Lisa Duell, then met with the school’s dean about the flyers, and they were told they could not include the phrase “Defund Planned Parenthood.”
The school’s principal then decided to suspend Noblesville Students for Life’s approval because of concerns that it was not student-led and student-driven, given the participation of E.D.’s mother, and because she refused to comply with instructions for meeting flyers. The club was reinstated in 2022 and remained active.
E.D.’s parents and Noblesville Students for Life filed a lawsuit against the school, arguing that their First Amendment rights were violated when the school refused to allow E.D.’s proposed posters.
But a federal district court ruled in favor of the school, finding that the flyers “could reasonably be perceived to bear the imprimatur of the school.” The district court applied a 1988 decision from the Supreme Court in the case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, in which the high court held that a school can exercise “editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.”
“It would be reasonable for parents and other members of the public entering NHS for sporting events, student concerts, theater performances, parent-teacher conferences, or any other reason who observed such flyers displayed on school walls to erroneously attribute any political messaging they contained to the school district or the school itself,” U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker wrote in a 2024 decision.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the district court’s decision, finding that students, parents or visitors to the school could view the posters as reflecting the school’s endorsement.
“This is not a case about tolerating private student speech,” the court found. “To the contrary, E.D. was permitted to wear her pro-life shirt to school and hand out her flyers to students at the activities fair. Instead, it is a case about whether the school must lend its resources (here, literally its walls) — and, by extension, its authority — to disseminate student messages.”
Additionally, the 7th Circuit said the school’s restriction on political content in flyers aimed to maintain “neutrality on matters of political controversy.” Allowing school walls to be covered with competing political messages would “divert attention from the business of learning,” the panel found.
E.D., represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative judicial group, appealed to the Supreme Court. In a filing to the justices, they argued that the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision has been used by schools and universities to censor speech they deem controversial.
“That can’t be the right rule for our nurseries of democracy,” the plaintiffs wrote, adding that the federal appeals courts have adopted different views on the breadth of student-speech protections. In a landmark 1969 decision in the case Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court held that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
They warned that “public schools and educators increasingly engage in political advocacy and indoctrination, heightening the risk that students who dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy will be censored.”
But lawyers for Noblesville High School argued that the case is not about a student’s expression at school, and instead addresses whether a school “must lend its walls to students to disseminate political messages.”
Students are free to express their political views through other channels, they wrote in a filing, but said the school had the authority to restrict political content on materials posted on its walls.