Austin Haughwout v. Laura Tordenti

Summary

The court affirmed the judgment rejecting a public university student's constitutional challenge to his expulsion. It held that the student's repeated statements about shooting the school, references to ammunition and firearms, shooting gestures, and identification of a student as a target constituted true threats when assessed in their full factual context, notwithstanding evidence that some listeners treated them as jokes. The court applied independent appellate review to the ultimate constitutional question while accepting subsidiary factual findings unless clearly erroneous.