H.K. was a high school student in the Freeland Community School District in Michigan. One weekend, while at home, he created a fake Instagram account pretending to be one of his teachers. H.K. then gave two friends the username and password. The friends posted sexual, insulting, and threatening material about teachers and another student. H.K. did not write most of the worst posts, but he knew what his friends were posting, joked with them about it, allowed the posts to remain online, and helped the account gain followers.

School officials learned about the account after teachers and students began discussing it at school. Teachers reported classroom disruptions, and some of the posts directly tagged school employees. The district investigated and ultimately suspended H.K. for ten days.

H.K.’s father argued that the suspension violated the First Amendment. He emphasized that H.K. created the account at home, outside school hours, and argued that H.K. should not be punished for posts written by his friends. The school district responded that H.K. created the account, gave his friends access to it, continued to participate after seeing what they posted, and helped spread speech that targeted the school community and threatened serious disruption.

The Sixth Circuit ruled for the school district. The court explained that students generally receive greater First Amendment protection for speech made away from school, but off-campus speech is not automatically beyond a school’s authority. Under Tinker and Mahanoy, a school may sometimes regulate off-campus student speech when there is a strong connection to the school and officials can reasonably predict a material and substantial disruption.

The court concluded that H.K. could be held responsible for the account even though his friends authored many of the posts. He created the impersonation account, shared its login information, monitored the posts, and continued helping the account attract attention. The court also found that school officials reasonably expected serious disruption because the account impersonated a teacher, targeted teachers and a student, included violent threats and sexual material, and had already begun affecting the school environment.

The case is important because it shows the limits of the rule protecting off-campus student speech. A student does not lose First Amendment protection simply because speech is offensive or unpopular, and schools do not have unlimited authority over everything students say online. But when off-campus social media is deliberately tied to the school community and creates or reasonably threatens substantial disruption, a school may have authority to discipline the student.