August 2011 Archives

A federal appeals court has allowed most of a white high school student's lawsuit alleging racial bias in his discipline over an altercation with a black student to move forward.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled that a principal and two other administrators in the Nashville, Tenn., school district were not entitled to qualified immunity for their roles in the discipline of student Christian Heyne.

Heyne was a senior at Hillsboro High School in Nashville in the fall of 2008 when he got into the altercation with a black student as they were both leaving football practice. Court papers say Heyne's car accidently struck the foot of the black student in a school parking lot as Heyne was driving out. After Heyne got out of his car and apologized, the black student threatened to kill him, according to the lawsuit.

The black student received no discipline, court papers say. The principal of Hillsboro High had instructed staff members to be more lenient in enforcing the school's code of conduct against African-American students because a disproportionate number were serving in-school suspensions, the lawsuit alleges.

Heyne, meanwhile, was suspended for his role in the altercation, initially for two days for reckless endangerment. Later, the suspension was increased to 10 days based on charges of "using an object in an assaultive manner" and "cruelty to a student," the suit alleges. The principal increased the suspension at the direction of two Nashville district discipline officials, the suit says.

Heyne and his parents sued the school district and several school officials, alleging violations of his 14th Amendment right to due process and equal protection of the law, among other claims. The student contends that because of the discipline on his record, and because the suspension forced him to miss two football games, he lost out on any chance for a college football scholarship or an appointment to one of the U.S. military service academies.

A federal district court dismissed claims against the school district, but ruled that the five officials did not have qualified immunity on the suit's procedural due process and equal-protection claims against them.

In its Aug. 26 decision in Heyne v. Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, the 6th Circuit court panel unanimously upheld the denial of qualified immunity to the principal and the two district discipline officials. The appellate panel reversed the district court and granted immunity to two other district officials named in the suit.

"Read in the light most favorable to Heyne, the amended complaint contains well-pled factual allegations we must accept as true suggesting that [the principal] suspended Heyne for ten days based in part on Heyne's race," the 6th Circuit court said. "Heyne's factual allegations state a plausible claim against [the principal and the two district discipline officials] for violation of his right to equal protection."

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A state judge has issued an injunction blocking a Missouri law that would have barred teachers from communicating with students over websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Judge Jon E. Beetem of Cole County Circuit Court said the law likely violates the First Amendment. The measure, which was to take effect Aug. 28, would have prohibited teachers from using non-work-related websites that allow exclusive access with students.

"The breadth of the prohibition is staggering," Judge Beetem said in his Aug. 26 decision in Missouri State Teachers Association v. Missouri. "The court finds that the statute would have a chilling effect on speech."

The teachers' union filed a lawsuit challenging the social-networking prohibition, which was passed this year as part of a larger bill designed to protect children from sexual abuse in schools. The judge's injunction does not affect the law's other provisions.

Judge Beetem found that social networking is used "extensively" by educators, and the Missouri measure could even bar communications between teachers and their own children. The injunction says that teachers who engage in social networking with students may not be disciplined, even if the court order is later overturned.

The Associated Press reports here that another union, the Missouri National Education Association, has been trying to work with legislators to revise the law, but that any such changes are not likely before the Missouri legislature's next regular session in January.

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A California teacher is immune from a student's lawsuit claiming that the teacher's classroom comments were hostile to religion, a federal appeals court has ruled.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, declined to decide whether any of the teacher's comments were actually hostile to religion to the point of violating the student's First Amendment right to be free from government establishment of religion.

Instead, the panel held unanimously that it was not clearly established that a teacher could violate the establishment clause by appearing hostile to religion during class lectures. Thus, the teacher in this case was entitled to qualified immunity from the student's lawsuit.

The Aug. 19 decision in C.F. v. Capistrano Unified School District involves a suit brought on behalf of a student who was a sophomore at Capistrano Valley High School in 2007 when he began the Advanced Placement European History course taught by James Corbett.

According to court papers, the teacher had told students in a letter that the course would be provocative and would prompt them to develop their critical-thinking skills. Students would be encouraged to disagree with the teacher as long as they could back up their arguments, the letter said.

The student, a Christian who believes in creationism, objected to numerous comments made by Corbett during the course, For example, Corbett said the strong religious beliefs of European peasants helped keep them from improving their position in society.

"When you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth," Corbett said in class. (The student surreptitiously recorded Corbett's lectures, which the teacher claims violated the state education code, but that issue wasn't before the court.)

The suit said Corbett also belittled creationism, and criticized a teacher at Capistrano Valley High who some 20 years ago had been involved in a controversy over his promotion of creation science. (According to court papers, Corbett is also Christian, and prays and attends church regularly.)

A federal district judge had granted summary judgment to the teacher on the basis of qualified-immunity over most of the suit's claims, although the judge ruled for the student over Corbett's criticism of the other Capistrano High teacher.

The 9th Circuit panel held that Corbett was entitled to qualified immunity on all of the suit's claims.

"We are aware of no prior case holding that a teacher violated the establishment clause by appearing critical of religion during class lectures, nor any case with sufficiently similar facts to give a teacher fair warning that such conduct was unlawful," said the opinion by U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond C. Fisher.

Both parties agreed that AP European History could not be taught without discussing religion, the court said, and "we have no doubt that the freedom to have a frank discussion about the role of religion in history is an integral part of any advanced history course."

In addressing religion in a public school classroom, teachers should be sensitive to students' personal beliefs and not abuse their authority, the court said, but teachers must also foster students' critical-thinking skills and develop their analytic abilities.

"This balance is hard to achieve, and we must be careful not to curb intellectual freedom by imposing dogmatic restrictions that chill teachers from adopting the pedagogical methods they believe are most effective," Judge Fisher said.

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A federal appeals court has upheld the brief suspension of a middle school student who wrote a violent essay for a class assignment, saying that school administrators must have latitude to "distinguish empty boasts from serious threats."

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, also unanimously upheld the dismissal of a civil rights claim over the school principal's decision to report the boy's parents to state child-welfare authorities. The principal believed the parents were not sufficiently concerned about the boy's record of misbehavior at school and his emotional well-being.

The ruling came in the case of a student at Warwick Valley Middle School in Warwick, N.Y., who in 2007 wrote an essay about having only 24 hours to live that describes the student getting drunk, taking drugs, taking cyanide, and shooting himself in the head in front of his friends. The boy's teacher shared the essay with the principal, who sequestered the student in in-school suspension for an afternoon while he evaluated whether the essay represented a threat, court papers say.

The principal concluded that the essay was not a threat and the boy was sent home without further discipline. But after a meeting with the boy's parents, the principal reported them to the state Department of Child and Family Services out of a concern that they were not taking their son's problems seriously. The state agency required the boy to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, but it later concluded the principal's fears were unfounded.

The parents sued the principal and the school district. They alleged that their son's in-school suspension was retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment. And they argued that the principal's report to the state child-welfare agency violated their 14th Amendment right to substantive due process of law.

A federal district court dismissed both claims. In its Aug. 17 decision in Cox v. Warwick Valley Central School District, the 2nd Circuit panel upheld the dismissal of the parents' suit.

"A school administrator must be able to react to ambiguous student speech by temporarily removing the student from potential danger (to himself and others) until it can be determined whether the speech represents a real threat to school safety and student learning," the 2nd Circuit court said. "Without more, the temporary removal of a student from regular school activities in response to speech exhibiting violent, disruptive, lewd, or otherwise harmful ideations is not an adverse action for purposes of the First Amendment absent a clear showing of intent to chill speech or punish it."

The court said the principal's call to Child and Family Services did not result in a loss of the parents' custody of their son, and there was no evidence that the principal acted maliciously.

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A groundbreaking private school voucher plan adopted by a Colorado school district violates the state constitution, a state trial judge has ruled.

Judge Michael A. Martinez of Denver County District Court granted an injunction barring the Douglas County school district from implementing its Choice Scholarship Pilot Program, holding that groups challenging the program have established that it violates several state constitutional provisions.

Under the plan adopted by the Douglas County school board in March, the school district intends to pay about $4,575 per student (which is about 75 percent of state per-pupil funding) to private schools for up to 500 students who previously attended public schools for at least a year. Board members said the program would save the district money, promote competition in education, and provide choices to parents.

The program, scheduled to begin this fall, was challenged by two groups of taxpayers as a violation of the Colorado Constitution's provisions on public school finance and against government aid to religion. The district contracted with 23 private schools to participate, at least 14 of which are religiously affiliated, court papers say.

"Because the religious private school partners infuse religious tenets into their educational curriculum, any funds provided to the schools, even if strictly limited to the cost of education, will result in the impermissible aid to private school partners to further their missions of religious indoctrination to purportedly 'public' school students," Judge Martinez said his Aug. 12 decision in Larue v. Douglas County School District.

In a statement on the school district's website, Douglas County Board of Education President John Carson said, "This ruling is not what the people of Douglas County wanted or what we know is in the best interests of our students."

The statement said the district will comply with the ruling, but strongly suggests that an appeal will be filed. "The district believes the Choice Scholarship Program will stand up to further legal scrutiny," the statement says.

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A school district is potentially liable in a federal civil rights suit for failing to protect a 4th grade student from sexual assault by a man who checked the girl out of school without authorization, a federal appeals court has ruled.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled 2-1 that the Covington County, Miss., school district had a special relationship with the 9-year-old student during the school day and a duty to protect her from the man who checked her out by claiming to be her father, and once even signing the girl out as her mother.

The court revived the family's lawsuit alleging that the school district violated the girl's substantive due process rights by being deliberately indifferent to her safety. It ordered a trial court to re-examine whether the family's allegations are true.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of a student identified as Jane Doe alleges that on six occasions during the 2007-08 school year, Covington Elementary School released the girl to a man who took her from the school and sexually assaulted her. The district had a compulsory check-out policy, with parents filling out a form listing adults authorized to check out their children. The man was not authorized to check out Jane Doe, court papers say. The Associated Press reports that the man was convicted of sexual battery in the assaults and is serving a 10-year prison term.

A federal district court dismissed the family's suit, ruling that the school did not have a special relationship with the 4th grader resulting in a duty to protect her from harm.

But in its Aug. 5 decision in Doe v. Covington County School District, the 5th Circuit panel held that there was a special relationship, especially in light of the girl's age and the district's alleged failure to comply with its own checkout policy.

The majority cited language from the U.S. Supreme Court's 1989 decision in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services. In that case, the high court held that there was no special relationship between government social workers and a child who was severely beaten by his father after the social workers had investigated reports of abuse and declined to remove the child from his home.

The court went on in DeShaney to say that the government agency could have had a duty to protect the child from private violence if it had taken an affirmatively active role in the child's care.

The 5th Circuit court majority said that while compulsory-attendance laws do not by themselves create a special relationship between schools and children, the age of the girl in this case and the school's alleged actions in "forcing" her into the custody of the man who molested her created such a relationship.

"The school's deliberate indifference as exhibited in its maladministration of its own check-out policy directly and actively created a known substantial risk to Jane's safety—which tragically materialized into her repeated sexual abuse," the court said.

Writing in dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Carolyn Dineen King said the majority's decision was an "unwarranted expansion of the 'special relationship' exception to the general rule that state actors are not required to protect individuals from private harm."

"The majority ... elevates a school employee's careless mistake—failing to ensure that [the assailant] was authorized to take Jane from the school—into a constitutional violation," King said.

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A Delaware school board's practice of reciting prayers before public board meetings is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, in Philadelphia, comes at a time of renewed attention to prayers in the public square. Prayers before city council and county board meetings have come under greater legal scrutiny, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry's decision to lead a prayer rally this past weekend raised concerns among civil libertarians.

Prayers before school board meetings are commonplace in the United States, though certainly not everywhere.

The 3rd Circuit case involves the 8,400-student Indian River school district in Delaware, which has had prayers at its board meetings since its founding in 1969, court papers say. In 2004, the district formalized its board meeting prayer policy, which calls for board members to rotate in leading a prayer or moment of silence to "solemnify" formal meetings. The policy says prayers may be sectarian or non-sectarian, "in the name of a Supreme Being, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Allah," or any other entity.

Court papers say that in practice, prayers have almost always been Christian.

Two families challenged the board prayers as a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition against government establishment of religion. A federal district court upheld the practice. But in its Aug. 5 decision in Doe v. Indian River School District, the 3rd Circuit court panel said the board's policy and practices cannot be squared with the establishment clause.

The court said the key question was whether the school board's meetings and prayers were closer to the legislative prayers upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1983 case of Marsh v. Chambers, or more like other school events in which the high court's cases have limited school-sponsored prayers.

The court noted that students are frequently present at board meetings, including student government representatives who regularly advise the Indian River board, as well as academic and sports team members who are recognized by the board.

The 3rd Circuit concluded that the board meetings are closer to other school events, such as graduation ceremonies, in which school-sponsored prayers have been held to have a coercive effect on students.

"Regardless of whether the board is a deliberative or legislative body, we conclude that Marsh is ill-suited to this context because the entire purpose and structure of the Indian River School District revolves around public school education," the opinion says. "The First Amendment does not require students to give up their right to participate in their educational system or be rewarded for their school-related achievements as a price for dissenting from a state-sponsored religious practice."

The 3rd Circuit decision covers Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The court noted that one other federal appeals court has addressed prayers before school board meetings. In a 1999 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, held that prayers before board meetings in Cleveland were barred by the establishment clause.

While some courts have extended Marsh to permit prayers before city council and county board meetings, the educational emphasis of school boards distinguishes them from those other local bodies, the 3rd Circuit court said.

The court closed its opinion by quoting an observation from the Supreme Court's 1962 decision striking down official prayer in the New York state schools, Engel v. Vitale.

"[I]t is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves," the high court said in that case.

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A federal appeals court has upheld the school discipline of a Missouri student who discussed in an instant-message conversation with a friend his desire to get a gun and shoot several of his classmates at school.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, in St. Louis, unanimously ruled that the comments by a student identified as D.J.M. were "true threats" that were not protected by the First Amendment.

"The First Amendment did not require the [school] district to wait and see whether D.J.M.'s talk about taking a gun to school and shooting certain students would be carried out," said the court's Aug. 1 opinion in D.J.M. v. Hannibal Public School District.

Court papers say D.J.M. was instant messaging with a friend in October 2006 when he discussed being romantically spurned by a female classmate. D.J.M. said he had access to a gun, and that while he would probably let the female friend live because "I still like her," he named several specific students who he "would have to get rid of," and he used anti-gay and racist epithets.

The student on the other end of the IM conversation, C.M., became concerned, and she passed along some of the comments to an adult friend, who contacted the principal of Hannibal High School. C.M. also passed along comments from D.J.M. that he "wanted Hannibal to be known for something," that he had access to a gun, and that he might commit suicide after shooting his classmates.

School officials immediately contacted police, who took D.J.M. into juvenile detention. Meanwhile, D.J.M. was suspended for 10 days, and later for the rest of his sophomore year. The student and his parents sued the Hannibal district, alleging that the suspension violated his free-speech rights because the instant messages were conducted outside of school and were not meant as serious expressions of intent to harm anyone.

A federal district court largely granted summary judgment to the school district, and D.J.M. appealed to the 8th Circuit.

The appeals court upheld the district court's findings that the comments by D.J.M. were true threats not protected by the First Amendment based on the specificity of the threats, his mindset at the time, and his access to a weapon.

"Here the [school] district was given enough information that it reasonably feared D.J.M. had access to a handgun and was thinking about shooting specific classmates at the high school," the 8th Circuit court said. "In light of the district's obligation to ensure the safety of its students and reasonable concerns created by shooting deaths at other schools such as Columbine and the Red Lake Reservation school, the district court did not err in concluding that the [school] district did not violate the First Amendment by notifying the police about D.J.M.'s threatening instant messages and subsequently suspending him after he was placed in juvenile detention."

The appeals court opinion does not discuss how long D.J.M. remained in juvenile detention, but the Hannibal Courier-Post reports here today that he eventually returned to Hannibal High School and graduated.

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A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit filed by the mother of a 7-year-old autistic child who was repeatedly locked in a dark isolation room at his school for misbehavior.

An en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled 8-3 that the Washington state mother's suit raised constitutional claims in addition to claims under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Thus, the entire suit did not have to exhaust administrative remedies under the federal special education law, the court held in a closely watched case that included briefs from the Obama administration and from the National School Boards Association.

The mother's lawsuit challenges the use by a Washington state school district of an isolation room for her son, identified in court papers as D.P. According to court papers, an elementary school teacher in the Peninsula School District, based in Gig Harbor, Wash., used a small "safe room" to give students timeouts when they misbehaved.

D.P.'s parents initially gave grudging consent to placing their son in the safe room as part of his individualized education plan. However, they raised objections after D.P. was locked in the room several times and urinated and defecated on himself, the suit contends.

The mother's suit for unspecified damages raises claims under the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as alleging that the school violated procedures under the IDEA. But because the mother did not exhaust administrative remedies under the federal special education law, both a federal district court and a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit court had ruled for the school district.

In its July 29 decision in Payne v. Peninsula School District, the larger 9th Circuit court panel said it was not deciding whether any of the suit's claims had merit. But it ordered the district court to allow the mother to amend her suit to flesh out her civil rights claims. Then, the court must decide whether those claims are related to the IDEA and require administrative "exhaustion."

"We hold that the IDEA's exhaustion provision applies only in cases where the relief sought by a plaintiff in the pleadings is available under the IDEA," said the majority opinion by U.S. Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee. "Non-IDEA claims that do not seek relief available under the IDEA are not subject to the exhaustion requirement, even if they allege injuries that could conceivably have been redressed by the IDEA."

Writing for the dissenters, Judge Carlos T. Bea said the majority was nullifying the intent of Congress when it passed the IDEA.

"The newly restricted exhaustion requirement will allow plaintiffs—through gamesmanship and cleverly-crafted pleadings—to subject school districts to civil liability for money damages, without first giving school districts the opportunity to remedy the plaintiff's injuries under the IDEA," Judge Bea said.

The exhaustion-of-remedies issue, though technical, attracted friend-of-the-court briefs on opposing sides. The Obama administration, siding with the mother, argued in a brief that "the IDEA does not require a plaintiff who seeks only compensatory damages for past unconstitutional conduct and has resolved all prospective educational issues to request a due process hearing before suing."

"The IDEA was not intended to be, and should not be construed as, a shield from liability for those school districts and their employees who unconstitutionally abuse seclusion and restraint techniques when dealing with children with disabilities," the brief added.

The NSBA, meanwhile, sided with the Peninsula district, arguing in its brief that "relaxing the IDEA's administrative exhaustion requirement does violence to Congress' intent to ensure expeditious, less adversarial dispute resolution with minimal emotional and financial costs to the parties."

The NSBA also said in its brief that there is no consensus among educational experts for or against using student seclusion techniques such as isolation rooms, and that "Washington state law specifically countenances the use of isolation as an aversive intervention special education strategy."

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