with the teachers and staff who serve his children we are here today to ask you to cut this gordian knot and rule in l f favor allowing him to regain his st amendment rights which are incorporated to him through the th amendment starting with the issue of standard of review all parties agree that this hearing the court is hearing this matter to know that's why we're asking you to rule in l f favor right however we do believe it's important to note that the court below errantly considered the facts in the light most favorable to the district rather than l f when considering cross motions for summary judgment while it's true that in reviewing court looks at a grant of sudden or a judgment denotes the principle from andersen versus liberty lobby also remains true that the facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to our client and all justifiable inferences drawn in his favor when considering the district's cross motion the standard does not change when there being cross motions and l f is entitle to the  liberty law that's been well articulated by this court from the valley indian tribe versus ryan to contest versus specific creditors association in two thousand if applying the correct standard or view on summary judgment is simply moot because the reviewing court considers the matter de novo as the district asserted in its briefing the supreme court would never have had to issue its two thousand and fourteen decision until one vs cotton overturning a federal appellate decision where the facts were viewed in the light most favorable to the moving party what material fact that the district court err in failing to view in your client's favor the entire facts session facts as fact section of the district court order is cited to all materials submitted by the district there is not a single citation to a portion of the record that was submitted by l f and so every fact in the order was viewed in the light most favorable to the district the fact that the other side  presenting facts doesn't mean that they are not looking at the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff you seem to be suggesting that the court can only look at the facts as suggested by you or your client that's not the case were asserting that the court should have looked at the facts in the analysis on summary judgment absolutely i'll give you the key issue and that was how the communication plan was characterized if you look at the evidence the evidence for your record and look at the plan itself which is on eight cents you'll see that the plan was not as the district characterized and the district court accepted intended to regulate the communication of district staff it was expressly intended to prohibit our client from communicating with teachers and staff where but where is that in the communication plan it says they are for do the the unproductive communication pattern but develop the district implement the following procedures regarding future interactions with you and if you read it in context the plans in the kates that if you go outside of these channels were just not going to respond but actually identified that they would sanction him further with they which they did and i would direct you to one hundred and forty six dollars which was the principal explaining the plan to staff that states that l f is prohibited from having any further direct communication or contact with any district administrators or staff just to be clear he has been specifically directed by the district not to contact any of his teachers school staff or administration he cannot communicate regarding anything substantive about his students or district policy or procedure so his ability to challenge just a policy or procedure to seek redress from the government was expressly taken away from  as i read it he can email them all he wants they just won't respond so so is there sanction imposed other then all right well if you go outside of these set procedures the district simply will not respond every time our client intended to do anything with respect to communicating about his children that the district found to be outside the communication plan they took away other avenues of communication for him so originally he was afforded one by weekly meetings he has a conversation with his child's teacher principal at a meeting about her progress where they talk about testings id and then boom he loses the ability to have a bi weekly meeting and in fact he is then prevented from communicating with the district at all for a month and a half then he is limited to communication one meeting then it gets reduced down to one email per month and so he's in if his ability to communicate with the district staff is effectively zero  because he was only allowed one email a month he's to this day three years later only allowed one email a month and every time he sought to have the plan modified or lifted he's been told that he can't have that done because he's not had sufficient communication to justify the removal of the plan so he's caught in a catch twenty two the so let me just make sure i understand your theory so the the prohibition on his speech in the sanction is that if he speaks outside of the channels th the response us get reduced or eliminated correct and his ability to speak gets reduced or eliminated for example he is now eliminated from having in person meetings so that takes away his venue of seeking redress against the district and the district was very clear that he could not engage in communication regarding anything substantive about his students or district policy or procedure which limits his ability to challenge the very restriction planet he's been placed  as set forth in our briefing speech the speech that l f engaged in is not the type of communication that can just be banned as a matter of course this isn't not a speech that's likely to incite lawless action it's not obscene it's not defamation i not fighting words it's not true threats it's also not speech that can be limited because of the special nature of the school st l f is not a student he's also not a staff member he's instead a parent who's trying to communicate with those local government entity his school about his children's education and to petition them for redress when he disagrees with the decisions they make even if he were a student and we were talking about the tinker standard and it's progeny sending emails that are not obscene  school sponsored hazlewood that don't promote drug use it's a school sponsored event fredrickson or that are not likely to cause a two year old substantial disruption tinker are not things that can be restricted with respect to material on substantial destruction there is no straight face where the district can argue that receiving emails is not a material substantial disruption this court has been clear that things like race riots as in the morgan hill case would be something that would rise to the level of a material substantial disruption to interjected question absolutely if there's a school district have the right to tell its employees where they're going to communicate it would depend on the topic given the st amendment rights afforded to employees and if it was implicating when the employees were work and if it was consistent with their collective bargaining agreement could the district impose limitation on employees that honored their st amendment rights absolutely but that's not what they did here they went one step further and this mr fuld ok so let me ask you this question is the school itself a public forum or is it not a public schools email system is a public forum because they have invited that is the way in which the public can communicate with them and with that i would direct you to the record where it flags the invitation to communicate with staff by email and that is that you are to twenty six and you are to forty six and five hundred and thirty seven through forty five ultimately here at best our client had an unproductive communication pattern according to the district but he was never given the chance to have protect productive communication he kept getting sanctioned every time he tried to talk about anything including testings so this is versus board of trustees a run down and unified school district which was issued on september th after the briefing in this case was closed there is a way in which school districts can constitutionally address concerns it has about parent behavior for example the school district in that case put a twenty four hour advance notice prohibition on a parent who was engaging in profanity and impeding aides abilities to serve her child the district absolutely can create reasonable limitations to access to its campus if a parent has violated one of its rules or policies here the district has a civility policy it has a harassment policy it has a policy specific to parent responsibilities it never invoked those with respect to l f therefore he never had an opportunity to have the facts of the circumstances judged against a valid policy and have a reasonable opportunity to peel in washington when parents receive access limitation under state vs screen they have an opportunity to appeal that there must be an internal appeal process and they have the opportunity to then challenge it in superior court here under no existing policy because the lake washington school district does not have a policy that identifies when it's going to issue these types of prohibitions our client is stuck in a vicious circle where he can't communicate about his children when he tries to his ability is completely restricted and here we are three years later and all he can do is send one email  reserve the balance of my time for especially challenging parent and in such circumstances the school district must balance the parent's interest in giving input with the district's interest and ensuring the efficient use of its resources and maintaining staff morale to better serve all students within the district here like washington school district did that by channeling communications with appellant l f through high level administrators who could better handle his demanding and hostile communication pattern the legal issue that is now before this court is a narrow one specifically whether the district terms of engagement for communicating with l f violated his st amendment right to freedom of speech and as the district court held the st amendment does not preclude a school district for managing its interactions with the parent through its own staff members moreover the district here reasonably channeled rather than silenced ls communications with the district and continued to engage with him on educational issues related to his children turning same evidence was submitted in large part by both sides there are no specific facts that are material here in dispute the primary issue that the district court based its ruling on was legal which is the whether the st amendment is implicated at all  and there are no inferences identified that the district court failed to credit so turning to the merits and like to address three key issues here the st is whether the st amendment is implicated by the circumstances of this case the nd is assuming the st amendment has been implicated even if it has been implicated whether the district's communication plan could qualify as a prior restraint implicating the highest level of scrutiny under  restrict a school districts ability to manage its communications with the parent there is no dispute here that the communication plan only applies to l f's speech with district staff members no  more and opposing counsel pointed to some e mails that followed the implementation of the plan that was instructing teachers not to speak with l f and that only furthers the point the district was managing its staff members and telling them we have set these certain terms of engagement there are administrators who have been designated to engage in this speech on behalf of the district you are not designated to do that please respect our the district's decision on this front so all we're dealing with his interactions and the u s supreme court has repeatedly held that the st amendment does not give anyone a right to an audience with the government and so that was the holding in minnesota state board it was the holding in smith and i would also point out the minnesota state board took place in an educational context and the court specifically said the rule applies and no one is allowed to force the government to engage with them on their own  terms l f fails to respond to this precedent and the cases that ellis has cited involve very different circumstances such as the leasing of a public theater or the denial of a permit to engage in a protest activities at the core of the st amendment none of the cases l f cites involved a parent demanding to communicate with school staff on the other hand the district has cited numerous cases involving parent school interaction and those cases confirmed there is no such st amendment right and school districts have the ability to manage these kinds of communications so in some l f has no valid st amendment claim which is the only claim that he has a turning quickly to the nd issue if even if the court were to consider the application of the st amendment the communication plain cannot be considered a prior restraint there has been no cases applying prior restraint analysis to a school district administrative decision which is what we have here moreover the plan is simply a method of channeling communication is not silencing of speech in this court is held in the mere channeling cannot implicate prior restraint analysis so turning then to the rd issue again even if the court were to consider applying the st amendment to these circumstances what is the appropriate for analysis judge will you raise the question of what kind of forum are we dealing with here is there a public forum or not and the answer is no there is no public forum at at most we are dealing with a limited public forum meaning all that is required is reasonable miss and viewpoint neutrality and the district it the record make clear the district has been both reasonable and neutral in its actions so beginning with whether there's a public forum ellis only argument is about the district email system it is not about this all of the districts facilities so just focusing on the e mail system there is restricted access to the e mail system so staff  members have to log in with passwords the public is not entitled to simply use the email account as they see fit moreover there is a district policy making very clear that the accounts are to be used only for school business and the district will monitor to ensure that that is happening an parry there is no intent to create a public forum so then we are left with a limited public forum as in parry which means the only thing the replies that applies is reasonable miss and if you point you truly and is beyond dispute based on this record the district actions have been both reasonable and neutral so beginning with reasonable pnas the record shows that a at once communications with the district were burdensome unproductive and hostile and thus warranted special terms of engagement based on the volume based on the tone and based on the overall burden on the district's resources which is uncontroverted and those concerns are a reasonable basis to then channel those communications to high level administrators and the other reason the plan is reasonable is that it was targeted only to the ad hoc communications l f was engaging in with staff members other avenues of communication remained including formal section five hundred and four accommodation process asking for meetings attending meetings appealing decisions receiving notice of what's happening and parent teacher conferences just as examples and the record shows l f actually continued to attend parent teacher conferences so there's other avenues of interaction that remained it was these ad hoc unproductive communications that were that were channelled the record also shows confirming the reasonable this of the district's approach that its resources were conserved and there is no evidence in the record of any instance in which l f was unable to get his point across to the district to raise any concerns and haven't addressed this i would also point out is not an indefinite restriction on his ability to communicate both because of these other channels and the fact that it is a substantive meaningful channel in which he can communicate but also the district there are examples in the record where the district offered to broaden the terms of communication but because those were met with further objections to any terms at all and more argumentative responses the district is cited to keep it in place but again there's no evidence that there has been an issue with the ability to communicate as to the basis of the reasonable basis of the plan i'd also add that it is consistent with the district's civility policy which indicates that direct communications will be attempted to resolve issues if that doesn't work administrators will then step in to assess that's exactly what happened that's what this plan is and also there was a state right to appeal the plan basically the l f could have argued that it was arbitrary and capricious under state law but did not pursue that route so again the plan is clearly reasonable turning then to viewpoint neutrality the record makes clear that the district acted to address the legitimate concerns about the volume tone and burden here not to silence elapse advocacy or out of a disagreement with the views that he was expressing and that's clear from a number of things on the record direct testimony from the district about why it implemented the plan the face of the plan is targeted it's only as to these as ad hoc communications and other avenues remain as i mentioned there's an exception for emergency situations ls continued to be able to access school student data and records and then again five hundred and four and parent conferences as examples next the record shows that after the plan was implemented the district proceeded to facilitate communications with l f there's examples of information being provided to him upon request there is an example in which he was allowed to actually meet with a teacher directly about a particular issue he had raised there's another example in which l f provided data in a director meeting that data was then relayed to a principal and at l f suggestion a guidance team meeting was considered and then held and at that meeting a formal accommodations were adopted for one of l f's children so it's clear that the district is not disagree with the substance of what was being said it was the manner in which it was presented and when it was channelled the district continued to consider it and in this instance agreed with it on the other side of the coin there is no evidence to the contrary there is no evidence in the record showing that the district acted out of disagreement with particular views or to silence l f it's only argument on this point is the temporal proximity between a request for an appeal and then of a particular five o four decision and i'm going to ask you a question yes so i moving a little trouble understanding how the neutrality the other issues in the case correct i think that's right around or so this is all if if the court got to view point you try then how would it be dealt with the district position is that it doesn't the court doesn't even get there but but if the court did get there i think the argument would be that they limit on ls ability to interact with the district l f s suggesting it was done based on the views he was expressing but there's no basis for that the record i don't i agree with your honor though that it's odd to suggest there's a viewpoint viewpoint you trial usually when it's simply a an administrative decision in dealing with you know one dollar to one dollar situation with someone to manage the communications with them as opposed to a rule that picks out of you and says we're going to hear only on you know people who have this position rather than people who do not so you and i i'm not aware of precedent showing a similar situation where the court saying this was a viewpoint discrimination in a one to one context you think yes so to finish the point on viewpoint your tragedy there's no evidence of discrimination the suggestion of this inference because of the temporal proximity ignores the entire can i follow up yes the fact that i know that the communication plan focuses on the unproductive pattern of communications in the past but there is one particular provision talking about the agenda with the district reserves the right to review the agenda and determine if the issues on the list are appropriate for discussion that meetings this that undercut your argument point no your honor i think it's a valid concern if the district had use that in a way to simply silence any criticism and only hear positive feedback but nothing like that occurred the record shows and what is reflected in the plan the district was again trying to manage the volume and the tone issues and as to the volume in particular the district did not want to engage in discussions of issues that had already been resolved for which there was no new information or new points to be made that was the main concern and there's multiple examples in the record where issues are presented as l f as presenting agendas and the minister the district administrator takes time to go through each one and evaluate whether it had already been discussed and was resolved or whether ok this is something new and it makes sense for us to discuss it in this context so none of it was about viewpoint it's all about whether it was appropriate for interact the interactions and had already been covered so to finish up on the neutrality question even in between the time that l f appealed the decision at issue and the time that communication was implemented there are multiple examples of the luminous and hostile communications continuing in fact he lodged the appeal at the time he was lodging the appeal through those communications he called a principal incompetent i mean that was it was a pattern continued and it's clear that's why the district did what it did and and also the district then followed up with a laugh on the peel it was he who abandoned it and that and the communication plan allowed him to continue in the five  with all that said there's no hint anywhere of viewpoint you try a viewpoint discrimination as this court held in nelson in the absence of such evidence especially when you have a record of showing the justifications the neutral justifications summary judgment is appropriate conclusion the district acted reasonably unlawfully in addressing the problematic communication pattern that arose between l f and district staff as a matter of law the st amendment does not restrict the district's ability to manage these types it's unfortunate that the lake washington school district council continues to do what we see as unproductive communication patterns and that's to use hyperbole to vilify communication and i would point your honour's to page five of our reply brief that describes how many different adjectives they use to supplicate to essentially get to the same point of annoying and so i would ask that you look at the communication at issue and not accept things like threatening or dangerous or the vil ying terms in fact i would hope that the idea of terms of engagement a term of war is not how school districts view interacting with parents when they have questions about their children's education to be very clear our client is not seeking to engage the district on his own terms he's seeking to engage the district on the terms it allows every other parent to do except for those the district chooses not to hear from the district has no policy on when it issues these communication plan but it certainly seems to apply them only to parents that they don't want to hear from and so to that end yes it is affectively silencing and other parents whose viewpoints the district does not want to hear with respect to the question about what the form analysis says i would point your honour's to perry education association versus perry board of education case that case related to stassi use of mailboxes in and what happens when the mailboxes in the staff office became available for rd parties to communicate that's what's happened here with the school districts what web site e mails in fact as i've done if i had previously the district encourages parents to use e mail as a form of communication with staff allowing a parent to email one high level district administrator once a month is not reasonable also it's important to remember that he is limited in what he can communicate about he cannot have substantive discussions about his children and he cannot challenge district policies or procedures that's it the most blatant effort to limit content and viewpoint that i could come up with you cannot partition the school district to challenge their existing policies or procedures additionally it's important with respect to the us idea if the plan is not unlimited and he could challenge it when counsel for a left approach the school district about changing the plan after there was discussion of whether elephant had sufficient opportunities to demonstrate a better communication pattern which of course he was caught in the catch twenty two dollars if he communicated he faced further sanction the district took the position that the very act of council sending a letter to the to the lake washington school district general council reflected an intent to ignore and challenge the modified plan so that left in our reply brief that simply is not a political to this type of case because a school district does not have the authority in the st instance to decide if its actions are constitutional that's addressed on pages ten through thirteen of our reply br ultimately this case truly is a case about a prior restraint against a parent's ability to speak and there is no way to know whether the district's decision to impose its restrictions on our client or any other client is not actually based on the content of their speech because they have no guideposts for determining when it is that they're going to issue one of these plants they absolutely have other venues that are reasonable if they have concerns for their staff they have three different policies they could apply they tell us not to apply those to l f the court should cut this gordian knot allow a left to have st amendment his st amendment rights restored and then if the district agrees disagrees with his contant conduct to have them apply one of their existing