Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-08-01050/USCOURTS-ca7-08-01050-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 08-1050

ALEXANDER NUXOLL, by his next friends,

MICHAEL NUXOLL and PENNY NUXOLL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

INDIAN PRAIRIE SCHOOL DISTRICT #204, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 07 C 1586—William T. Hart, Judge.

____________

ARGUED APRIL 4, 2008—DECIDED APRIL 23, 2008

____________

Before POSNER, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff, a sophomore at

Neuqua Valley High School, a large public high school

in Naperville, Illinois, has brought suit against the school

district and school officials contending that they are

violating his right to free speech by forbidding him to make

negative comments at school about homosexuality. He

moved for a preliminary injunction, which was denied,

and he appeals the denial. The parties tacitly agree that

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
2 No. 08-1050

he is entitled to a preliminary injunction if he has shown

a reasonable probability that his right to free speech is

being violated. The Supreme Court believes that “the loss

of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods

of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976) (plurality opinion);

see also Christian Legal Society v. Walker, 453 F.3d 853, 859

(7th Cir. 2006); Connection Distributing Co. v. Reno, 154 F.3d

281, 288 (6th Cir. 1998); Tunick v. Safir, 209 F.3d 67, 70 (2d

Cir. 2000). The school has not tried to show that the

grant of a preliminary injunction, at least if narrowly

drafted, would cause irreparable harm to it. So the

balance of harms inclines toward the plaintiff, and therefore the school can prevail only if his claim is demonstrably weak.

A private group called the Gay, Lesbian, and

Straight Education Network promotes an annual

event called the “Day of Silence” that is intended to

draw attention to harassment of homosexuals. See

www.dayofsilence.org (visited Apr. 5, 2008). The idea

behind the name is that homosexuals are silenced by

harassment and other discrimination. The goal of the “Day

of Silence” is not to advocate homosexuality but to advocate tolerance for homosexuals. A student club at Neuqua

Valley High School called the Gay/Straight Alliance

sponsors the “Day of Silence” at the school. Students participate by remaining silent throughout the day except

when called upon in class, though some teachers, as part

of their own observance of the “Day of Silence,” will not

call on students participating in the observance. Some

students and faculty wear T-shirts that day with legends

such as “Be Who You Are.” None of the legends advocates homosexuality or criticizes heterosexuality. Indeed,

opposition to harassment of persons who happen to be

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
No. 08-1050 3

homosexual is consistent with disapproval of homosexuality itself.

The plaintiff is one of the students who disapprove

of homosexuality. Some of them participate in a “Day of

Truth” (see www.dayoftruth.org (visited Apr. 5, 2008))

held on the first school day after the “Day of Silence.” They

recommend that supporters wear a T-shirt that reads

“day of truth” and “The Truth cannot be silenced.” Two

years ago a coplaintiff (who has since graduated and as

a result is no longer seeking injunctive relief) wore a

shirt that read “My Day of Silence, Straight Alliance” on the

front and “Be Happy, Not Gay” on the back. A

school official had the phrase “Not Gay” inked out. Last

year neither plaintiff wore a shirt that contained the

phrase, or otherwise tried to counter the Day of Silence,

for fear of being disciplined.

None of the slogans mentioned so far has been banned

by the school authorities except “Be Happy, Not Gay.” The

school bases the ban on a school rule forbidding “derogatory comments,” oral or written, “that refer to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.”

The school deems “Be Happy, Not Gay” a derogatory

comment on a particular sexual orientation. The school’s

position is that members of a listed group may comment

favorably about their own group but may not make a

derogatory comment about another group. The rule does

not apply to comments made outside of school.

The plaintiff challenges the rule, as well as its application

in this case. He believes that the First Amendment entitles

him to make, whether in school or out, any negative

comments he wants about the members of a listed group,

including homosexuals (a group defined of course by

sexual orientation), provided they are not inflammatory

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
4 No. 08-1050

words—that is, not “fighting words,” words likely to

provoke a violent reaction and hence a breach of the

peace. The Supreme Court has placed fighting words

outside the protection of the First Amendment. Chaplinsky

v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572-73 (1942) (Jehovah’s

Witness called a government official “a God damned

racketeer” and “a damned Fascist”). Although subsequent

invocations of the doctrine have failed, e.g., R.A.V. v. City

of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 386 (1992); Texas v. Johnson, 491

U.S. 397, 409-10 (1989); Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 20-

21 (1971); Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197, 1204-05 (7th Cir.

1978); Sandul v. Larion, 119 F.3d 1250, 1255 (6th Cir. 1997),

the plaintiff concedes its continued validity and further

concedes that he could not inscribe “homosexuals go to

Hell” on his T-shirt because those are fighting words

and so can be prohibited despite their expressive content

and arguable theological support. R.A.V. v. City of St.

Paul, supra, 505 U.S. at 386.

The concession is prudent. A heavy federal constitutional hand on the regulation of student speech by

school authorities would make little sense. The contribution that kids can make to the marketplace in ideas and

opinions is modest and a school’s countervailing interest in

protecting its students from offensive speech by their

classmates is undeniable. Granted, because 18-year-olds

can now vote, high-school students should not be “raised

in an intellectual bubble,” as we put it in American Amusement Machine Association v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572, 577 (7th

Cir. 2001), which would be the effect of forbidding all

discussion of public issues by such students. But Neuqua

Valley High School has not tried to do that. It has prohibited only (1) derogatory comments on (2) unalterable or

otherwise deeply rooted personal characteristics about

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No. 08-1050 5

which most people, including—perhaps especially

including—adolescent schoolchildren, are highly sensitive.

People are easily upset by comments about their race,

sex, etc., including their sexual orientation, because for

most people these are major components of their personal identity—none more so than a sexual orientation

that deviates from the norm. Such comments can strike a

person at the core of his being.

There is evidence, though it is suggestive rather than

conclusive, that adolescent students subjected to derogatory comments about such characteristics may find it even

harder than usual to concentrate on their studies and

perform up to the school’s expectations. See David M.

Huebner et al., “Experiences of Harassment, Discrimination, and Physical Violence Among Young Gay and

Bisexual Men,” 94 Am. J. Public Health 1200-01 (July 2004);

Michael Bochenek & A. Widney Brown, Human Rights

Watch, “Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender

Students in U.S. Schools” 1-3 (2001), www.hrw.org/

reports/2001/uslgbt/toc.htm (visited Apr. 15, 2008);

American Association of University Women Educational

Foundation, “Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing, and

Sexual Harassment in School” 37 (2001), www.aauw.org/

research/upload/hostilehallways.pdf (visited Apr. 14,

2008). Neuqua Valley High School is huge—4200 students—and the potential for wounding speech concerning the personal characteristics listed in the school’s

rule is great. Nor, on the benefits side of the First Amendment balance, is uninhibited high-school student hallway

debate over sexuality—whether carried out in the form

of dueling T-shirts, dueling banners, dueling pamphlets,

annotated Bibles, or soapbox oratory—an essential preparation for the exercise of the franchise.

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
6 No. 08-1050

A judicial policy of hands off (within reason) school

regulation of student speech has much to recommend it.

On the one hand, judges are incompetent to tell school

authorities how to run schools in a way that will preserve

an atmosphere conducive to learning; on the other hand the

suppression of adolescents’ freedom to debate sexuality is

not one of the nation’s pressing problems, or a problem

that can be solved by aggressive federal judicial intervention. A far more urgent problem, the high dropout rates in

many public schools, United States Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, “Dropout

Rates in the United States: 2005” 3-5 (June

2007), nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007059.pdf (visited Apr. 14,

2008), will not be solved by First Amendment free-for-alls,

though happily the drop-out rate at Neuqua Valley

High School, serving as it does the wealthy city of

Naperville, is negligible.

It may not be obvious to an outsider how a T-shirt on

which is written the slogan “Be Happy, Not Gay” will

poison the school atmosphere, but the outsider is—an

outsider. And of course the plaintiff doesn’t want to

stop there. He wants to wear T-shirts that make more

emphatically negative comments about homosexuality,

provided only that the comments do not cross the line

that separates nonbelligerent negative comments from

fighting words, wherever that line may be. He also

wants to distribute Bibles to students to provide documentary support for his views about homosexuality. We

foresee a deterioration in the school’s ability to educate its

students if negative comments on homosexuality by

students like Nuxoll who believe that the Bible is the

word of God to be interpreted literally incite negative

comments on the Bible by students who believe either

that there is no God or that the Bible should be interpreted

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
No. 08-1050 7

figuratively. Mutual respect and forbearance enforced

by the school may well be essential to the maintenance

of a minimally decorous atmosphere for learning.

But we cannot accept the defendants’ argument that

the rule is valid because all it does is protect the “rights”

of the students against whom derogatory comments are

directed. Of course a school can—often it must—protect

students from the invasion of their legal rights by

other students. But people do not have a legal right to

prevent criticism of their beliefs or for that matter their

way of life. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, supra, 505 U.S. at 394;

Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 321 (1988). There is no indication that the negative comments that the plaintiff wants to

make about homosexuals or homosexuality names or

otherwise targets an individual or is defamatory. Anyway,

though Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250 (1952), has

never been overruled, no one thinks the First Amendment would today be interpreted to allow group defamation to be prohibited. American Booksellers Ass’n v. Hudnut,

771 F.2d 323, 331 n. 3 (7th Cir. 1985), aff’d without opinion,

475 U.S. 1001 (1986); Abramson v. Pataki, 278 F.3d 93, 102

(2d Cir. 2002); Dworkin v. Hustler Magazine Inc., 867 F.2d

1188, 1200 (9th Cir. 1989).

The school is on stronger ground in arguing that the

rule strikes a reasonable balance between the competing

interests—free speech and ordered learning—at stake in

the case. But the plaintiff tells us that the Supreme

Court has placed a thumb on the balance—that it has

held that a school unable to prove that student speech

will cause “disorder or disturbance,” Tinker v. Des Moines

Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503,

508 (1969), can ban such speech only if it either is lewd,

Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 685

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
8 No. 08-1050

(1986) (“a sexually explicit monologue directed towards

an unsuspecting audience of teenage students”), or advocates the consumption of illegal drugs. Morse v. Frederick,

127 S. Ct. 2618, 2626-27 (2007). He notes that Justice Alito’s

concurring opinion in Morse (joined by Justice Kennedy)

disparages invocation of a school’s “educational mission”

as a ground for upholding restrictions on high-school

students’ freedom of speech; the opinion warns that

such invocation “strikes at the very heart of the First

Amendment,” id. at 2637, though one may doubt just

how close debate by high-school students on sexual

preferences really is to the heart of the First Amendment.

The plaintiff calls Justice Alito’s concurrence the “controlling” opinion in Morse because Justices Alito and

Kennedy were part of a five-Justice majority, so that their

votes were crucial to the decision. But they joined the

majority opinion, not just the decision, and by doing

so they made it a majority opinion and not merely, as the

plaintiff believes (as does the Fifth Circuit, Ponce v. Socorro

Independent School District, 508 F.3d 765, 768 (5th Cir. 2007)),

a plurality opinion. McKevitt v. Pallasch, 339 F.3d 530, 531-

32 (7th Cir. 2003). The concurring Justices wanted to

emphasize that in allowing a school to forbid student

speech that encourages the use of illegal drugs the

Court was not giving schools carte blanche to regulate

student speech. And they were expressing their own view

of the permissible scope of such regulation.

If the schoolchildren are very young or the speech is

not of a kind that the First Amendment protects (both

features of our decision in Brandt v. Board of Education of

City of Chicago, 480 F.3d 460, 465-66 (7th Cir. 2007), which,

as the plaintiff correctly notes, distinguishes that case from

this one), the school has a pretty free hand. See id.; Muller

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No. 08-1050 9

by Muller v. Jefferson Lighthouse School, 98 F.3d 1530, 1538-39

(7th Cir. 1996); Baxter by Baxter v. Vigo County School Corp.,

26 F.3d 728, 738 (7th Cir. 1994); Blau v. Fort Thomas Public

School District, 401 F.3d 381, 389 (6th Cir. 2005); WalkerSerrano ex rel. Walker v. Leonard, 325 F.3d 412, 416-17 (3d Cir.

2003); Lovell by Lovell v. Poway Unified School District,

90 F.3d 367, 373 (9th Cir. 1996). But it does not follow

that because those features are missing from this case

the school must prove that the speech it wants to suppress will cause “disorder or disturbance,” or that it

“materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial

disorder” or “would materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.”

All three formulas are found in Tinker v. Des Moines

Independent Community School District, supra, 393 U.S. at

513, but that was a quite different case from this. The

school was discriminating against a particular point of

view, namely opposition to the Vietnam war expressed

by the wearing of black armbands. Id. at 510-11. The

parallel to Tinker in this case would be a rule that forbade

negative comments just about heterosexuality or just about

homosexuality. And Tinker preceded Fraser and Morse.

Taking the case law as a whole we don’t think a school is

required to prove that unless the speech at issue is forbidden serious consequences will in fact ensue. That

could rarely be proved. (Scott v. School Board of Alachua

County, 324 F.3d 1246, 1249 (11th Cir. 2003), and West v.

Derby Unified School District No. 260, 206 F.3d 1358, 1365-

66 (10th Cir. 2000)—cases that involved the display of the

Confederate flag in racially mixed schools—illustrate the

rare case.) It is enough for the school to present “facts

which might reasonably lead school officials to forecast

substantial disruption.” Boucher v. School Board of School

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10 No. 08-1050

District of Greenfield, 134 F.3d 821, 827-28 (7th Cir. 1998);

Walker-Serrano ex rel. Walker v. Leonard, supra, 325 F.3d

at 416; LaVine v. Blaine School District, 257 F.3d 981, 989

(9th Cir. 2001).

This tells us what the standard of proof is. But what is

“substantial disruption”? Must it amount to “disorder or

disturbance”? Must classwork be disrupted and if so

how severely? We know from Morse that the Supreme

Court will let a school ban speech—even speech outside the

school premises—that encourages the use of illegal drugs,

without the school’s having to prove a causal relation

between the speech and drug use. We know too that

avoiding violence, if that is what “disorder or disturbance” connotes, is not a school’s only substantial concern. Violence was not the issue in Morse, or in Fraser,

the lewd-speech case. In fact one of the concerns expressed by the Supreme Court in Morse was with the

psychological effects of drugs. 127 S. Ct. at 2628-29; see also

Canady v. Bossier Parish School Board, 240 F.3d 437, 443

(5th Cir. 2001); cf. Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton,

515 U.S. 646, 656, 661-62 (1995). Imagine the psychological

effects if the plaintiff wore a T-shirt on which was written “blacks have lower IQs than whites” or “a woman’s

place is in the home.”

From Morse and Fraser we infer that if there is reason to

think that a particular type of student speech will lead to

a decline in students’ test scores, an upsurge in truancy,

or other symptoms of a sick school—symptoms therefore of substantial disruption—the school can forbid the

speech. The rule challenged by the plaintiff appears to

satisfy this test. It seeks to maintain a civilized school

environment conducive to learning, and it does so in an

even-handed way. It is not as if the school forbade only

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No. 08-1050 11

derogatory comments that refer, say, to religion, a prohibition that would signal a belief that being religious

merits special protection. See Lamb’s Chapel v. Center

Moriches Union Free School District, 508 U.S. 384, 394 (1993);

R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, supra, 505 U.S. at 391-92; Hedges

v. Wauconda Community Unit School District No. 118, 9

F.3d 1295, 1298 (7th Cir. 1993). The list of protected characteristics in the rule appears to cover the full spectrum of

highly sensitive personal-identity characteristics. And the

ban on derogatory words is general. Nuxoll can’t say

“homosexuals are going to Hell” (though he can advocate

heterosexuality on religious grounds) and it cannot be

said back to him that “homophobes are closeted homosexuals.” The school’s rule bans “derogatory

comments . . . that refer to race, ethnicity, religion, gender,

sexual orientation, or disability.”

We grant that a rule which forbids any class of remarks,

however narrowly defined and whatever the justification, restricts free speech. But that observation is the

beginning of the constitutional analysis, not the end. The

number of restrictions on freedom of speech that have

survived constitutional challenge is legion. This particular

restriction, it is true, would not wash if it were being

imposed on adults, id. at 390; Rosenberger v. Rector &

Visitors of University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995),

because they can handle such remarks better than kids can

and because adult debates on social issues are more

valuable than debates among children. It probably

would not wash if it were extended to students when

they are outside of the school, where students who

would be hurt by the remarks could avoid exposure to

them. It would not wash if the school understood “derogatory comments” to embrace any statement that could be

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12 No. 08-1050

construed by the very sensitive as critical of one of the

protected group identities. (That may, as we’ll see, be a

problem with the school’s application of its rule to the

facts of this case.) But high-school students are not

adults, schools are not public meeting halls, children are

in school to be taught by adults rather than to practice

attacking each other with wounding words, and school

authorities have a protective relationship and responsibility

to all the students. Because of that relationship and responsibility, we are concerned that if the rule is invalidated the

school will be placed on a razor’s edge, where if it bans

offensive comments it is sued for violating free speech and

if it fails to protect students from offensive comments by

other students it is sued for violating laws against harassment, as in Nabozny v. Podlesny, 92 F.3d 446, 457 (7th Cir.

1996).

We are mindful that the Supreme Court said in Tinker

that “if a regulation were adopted by school officials

forbidding discussion of the Vietnam conflict . . . it would

be obvious that the regulation would violate the constitutional rights of students, at least if it could not be justified

by a showing that the students’ activities would materially

and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the

school.” 393 U.S. at 513. But to ban all discussion of the

Vietnam war would in reality have been taking

sides—would have delighted the government—because

the debate over the war was started, maintained, and

escalated by the war’s opponents.

So the plaintiff is not entitled to a preliminary injunction

against the rule. And, his lawyer conceded at oral argument, neither is he entitled to a preliminary injunction

against the defendants’ forbidding his making “negative

comments” about homosexuality short of “fighting words.”

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No. 08-1050 13

Not only are such terms too vague to be the operative

terms of an injunction, which must contain a detailed

and specific statement of its terms, Fed. R. Civ. P.

65(d)(1)(A), (C); Schmidt v. Lessard, 414 U.S. 473, 475-77

(1974) (per curiam); Hispanics United of DuPage County v.

Village of Addison, 248 F.3d 617, 619-20 (7th Cir. 2001);

Burton v. City of Belle Glade, 178 F.3d 1175, 1200-01 (11th Cir.

1999), but the plaintiff’s lawyer did not propose any

language to the district judge. A litigant has a feeble

claim for a preliminary injunction when he can’t articulate

what he wants enjoined. Cf. 11A Charles Alan Wright &

Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2949,

pp. 212-13 (2d ed. 2007); Wolgin v. Simon, 722 F.2d 389,

394-95 (8th Cir. 1983). The plaintiff concedes, therefore,

that the most he is entitled to is an injunction that

would permit him to stencil “Be Happy, Not Gay” on his Tshirt on the “Day of Truth” because forcing deletion of

“Not Gay” stretches the school’s derogatory-comments

rule too far. We must consider the argument carefully,

because the term “derogatory comments” is unavoidably

vague. (If a clearer formulation could be substituted, the

rule might be invalid because of its vagueness, but the

parties do not suggest alternative formulations.)

The expression “Be Happy, Not Gay” is a play on words,

since “gay” used to be an approximate synonym for

“happy” but now has been appropriated to designate

homosexual orientation. One cannot even be certain that

it is a “derogatory” comment; for “not gay” is a synonym

for “straight,” yet the school has told us that it would not

object to a T-shirt that said “Be Happy, Be Straight.” It

wouldn’t object because to advocate X is not necessarily

to disparage Y. If you say “drink Pepsi” you may be

showing your preference for Pepsi over Coke, but you are

Case: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
14 No. 08-1050

not necessarily deriding Coke. It would be odd to call

“Be Happy, Drink Pepsi” a derogatory comment about

Coke.

But context is vital. Given kids’ sensitivity about their

sexual orientation and their insensitivity about their

preferences in soft drinks, the Pepsi-Coke analogy misses

the mark. The plaintiff, like the students who participate

in the “Day of Truth,” is expressing disapproval of homosexuality, as everyone knows. No one bothers to talk up

heterosexuality who isn’t interested in denigrating homosexuality. The plaintiff himself describes “Be Happy,

Not Gay” as one of the “negative comments” about homosexuality that he considers himself constitutionally privileged to make. He is in a better position than we are to

interpret the meaning of his own comment.

Nevertheless, “Be Happy, Not Gay” is only tepidly

negative; “derogatory” or “demeaning” seems too strong

a characterization. As one would expect in a school the

size of Neuqua Valley High School, there have been

incidents of harassment of homosexual students. But it

is highly speculative that allowing the plaintiff to wear a

T-shirt that says “Be Happy, Not Gay” would have even

a slight tendency to provoke such incidents, or for that

matter to poison the educational atmosphere. Speculation

that it might is, under the ruling precedents and on the

scanty record compiled thus far in the litigation, too thin

a reed on which to hang a prohibition of the exercise of a

student’s free speech. We are therefore constrained to

reverse the district court’s order with directions to

enter forthwith (the “Day of Truth” is scheduled for

April 28) a preliminary injunction limited however to the

application of the school’s rule to a T-shirt that recites “Be

Happy, Not Gay.” The school has failed to justify the ban

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No. 08-1050 15

of that legend, though the fuller record that will be compiled in the further proceedings in the case may cast the

issue in a different light.

And further proceedings there will be. The plaintiff

will not be content with the limited relief that we are

ordering. This is cause litigation. He will press for a

broader injunction as permanent relief, though one that

will fall short of permitting him to use fighting words in his

fight against homosexuality, for he has conceded that the

school can ban fighting words. The district judge will be

required to strike a careful balance between the limited

constitutional right of a high-school student to campaign

inside the school against the sexual orientation of other

students and the school’s interest in maintaining an

atmosphere in which students are not distracted from their

studies by wrenching debates over issues of personal

identity.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment.

I agree that we should reverse and remand this case to

the district court with instructions to enter an injunction

allowing Nuxoll to wear a shirt bearing the slogan

“Be Happy, Not Gay” on the school day following the

Day of Silence. I view this as a simple case. We are bound

by the rule of Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist.,

393 U.S. 503 (1969), a case that the majority portrays in

such a convoluted fashion that the discussion folds in on

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16 No. 08-1050

1 A Möbius strip is a “continuous, one-sided surface formed

by twisting one end of a rectangular strip through 180° about

the longitudinal axis of the strip and attaching this end to the

other.” WEBSTER’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE (RHR Press, 2001).

2 I will hereafter use the term “substantial disruption” as

shorthand for the Tinker standard.

itself like a Möbius strip.1 Tinker straight-forwardly tells

us that, in order for school officials to justify prohibition

of a particular expression of opinion, they must be able

to show that this “action was caused by something

more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and

unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular

viewpoint.” 393 U.S. at 509. Under Tinker, students may

express their opinions, even on controversial subjects,

so long as they do so “without ‘materially and substantially interfer[ing] with the requirements of appropriate

discipline in the operation of the school’ and without

colliding with the rights of others.” 393 U.S. at 512-13

(quoting Burnside v. Byars, 363 F.2d 744, 749 (5th Cir. 1966)).2

The school district has “not demonstrate[d] any facts

which might reasonably have led school authorities to

forecast substantial disruption of or material interference

with school activities,” and no such disruption occurred

two years earlier when Nuxoll’s co-plaintiff wore such a

shirt to school following the Day of Silence. Tinker, 393

U.S. at 514. Therefore, this particular expression must be

allowed.

Contrary to the majority’s characterization, Tinker is not

a case about viewpoint discrimination and is not distinguishable from the instant case. Supra at 9. Tinker involved

students who wished to wear black armbands to protest the

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No. 08-1050 17

Vietnam war. School officials would not allow the armbands although they did allow students to wear

other symbols of political or controversial significance,

including political campaign buttons and the Iron Cross,

a symbol that is associated with Nazism. The Court

concluded that “the prohibition of expression of one

particular opinion, at least without evidence that it is

necessary to avoid material and substantial interference

with schoolwork or discipline, is not constitutionally

permissible.” Tinker, 393 U.S. at 511. Tinker reveals

nothing about whether the school allowed symbols or

other expressions of opinion favorable to U.S. involvement

in the Vietnam war, and so there is no reason to read

Tinker as a case about viewpoint. It is more appropriately

characterized as a discussion about subject matter discrimination, although the opinion is not limited to the

circumstance where the school has banned all discussion

of a particular subject. The majority attempts to turn

Tinker into a viewpoint case by stating that a school ban on

“all discussion of the Vietnam war would in reality have

been taking sides,” supra at 12, because the debate over

the war was initiated by those opposed to it. And here is

the Möbius strip. Under the majority’s reasoning, allowing open debate on any subject would constitute taking

the side of the anti-status quo. Open debate could never

simply be open debate; it would constitute “taking sides,”

in particular taking the side of the party opposed to the

status quo. Open debate is the very value preserved by the

First Amendment and yet the majority reduces it to stealth

viewpoint expression. The majority expends much ink

trying to strike a balance between the interests of free

speech and ordered learning, a discussion which sounds

remarkably similar to the rule of Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v.

Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988), where the Supreme Court

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18 No. 08-1050

set a balancing rule for school-sponsored speech. This

case does not involve school-sponsored speech, and there

is no need for us to strike a new balance; the Supreme

Court has already set the applicable standard in Tinker.

Moreover, I heartily disagree with my brothers about the

value of the speech and speech rights of high school

students, which the majority repeatedly denigrates. Supra,

at 4, 5, 8 and 11. Youth are often the vanguard of social

change. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not been paying

attention to the civil rights movement, the women’s rights

movement, the anti-war protests for Vietnam and Iraq,

and the recent presidential primaries where the youth voice

and the youth vote are having a substantial impact. And

now youth are leading a broad, societal change in attitude

towards homosexuals, forming alliances among lesbian,

gay, bisexual, transgendered (“LGBT”) and heterosexual

students to discuss issues of importance related to sexual

orientation. They have initiated a dialogue in which Nuxoll

wishes to participate. The young adults to whom the

majority refers as “kids” and “children” are either already

eligible, or a few short years away from being eligible to

vote, to contract, to marry, to serve in the military, and to

be tried as adults in criminal prosecutions. To treat them as

children in need of protection from controversy, to blithely

dismiss their views as less valuable than those of adults,

supra at 11, is contrary to the values of the First Amendment. Justice Brennan eloquently stated this for the Court

more than forty years ago, and his words ring especially

true today:

The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is

nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools. The classroom is peculiarly the marketplace of ideas. The Nation’s future depends upon

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No. 08-1050 19

3 The majority also mischaracterizes the plaintiff’s position as

one seeking the outer limits of the Chaplinsky “fighting words”

doctrine. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).

(continued...)

leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust

exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a

multitude of tongues, rather than through any kind of

authoritative selection.

Tinker, 393 U.S. at 512 (quoting Keyishian v. Board of Regents,

385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967)) (internal citations and quotation

marks omitted). See also Hodgkins ex rel. Hodgkins v. Peterson, 355 F.3d 1048, 1055 (7th Cir. 2004) (“The strength of

our democracy depends on a citizenry that knows and

understands its freedoms, exercises them responsibly, and

guards them vigilantly. Young adults . . . are not suddenly

granted the full panoply of constitutional rights on the

day they attain the age of majority. We not only permit

but expect youths to exercise those liberties-to learn to

think for themselves, to give voice to their opinions, to

hear and evaluate competing points of view-so that they

might attain the right to vote at age eighteen with the

tools to exercise that right.”) The majority also treats the

subject matter of sexual orientation as lacking importance,

apparently failing to notice that, for the last decade or two,

state and national legislatures have been awash with

debates over the limits placed on the rights of LGBT

persons, and that presidential candidates are often subjected to litmus tests on these very issues. Finally, there

may be no more important time than adolescence for

individuals to contemplate issues relating to their

sexual identity. These are important issues and the voices

of young adults add much to the discussion.3

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20 No. 08-1050

3 (...continued)

True, the plaintiff ultimately seeks to expand the limits of his

speech regarding his religious views of homosexuality, but

he concedes that he is limited by Tinker, not Chaplinsky. Moreover, at oral argument, he limited his request for relief at this

stage to a preliminary injunction that would allow him to

wear his “Be Happy, Not Gay” shirt on the day following the

Day of Silence. There is no need for us to address the policy as

a whole or any other speech at this point in the litigation.

I therefore reserve for another time my own grave doubts as

to the constitutionality of the school’s policy on its face.

My brothers also wonder whether this slogan is actually

derogatory, noting that it is a play on the words “happy”

and “gay.” Supra at 13. That it is a play on words does

not change its ultimate meaning, however. Nuxoll tells us

that he intends the slogan to convey the message that

“homosexual behavior is contrary to the teachings of the

bible, damaging to the participants and society at large,

and does not lead to happiness.” Throughout his brief,

he claims to be criticizing homosexual “conduct” and

“behavior” although his four-word polemic “Be Happy,

Not Gay” does little to convey this message and instead

seems to attack homosexual identity. Nonetheless, the

statement is clearly intended to derogate homosexuals.

Teenagers today often use the word “gay” as a generic term

of disparagement. They might say, “That sweater is so gay”

as a way of insulting the look of the garment. In this way,

Nuxoll’s statement is really a double-play on words

because “gay” formerly meant “happy” in common usage,

and now “gay,” in addition to meaning “homosexual” is

also often used as a general insult. Nuxoll’s statement

easily fits the school’s definition of “disparaging” and

would meet that standard for most listeners. Moreover,

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No. 08-1050 21

the idea that “not gay” is a synonym for “straight,” supra

at 13, fails to recognize the many nuances of sexual orientation that have been apparent since 1948, when Alfred

Kinsey first set forth his zero-to-six Kinsey Scale, defining

a continuum of sexuality from exclusively heterosexual

on one end to exclusively homosexual on the other end.

I scarcely know where to begin with the Pepsi/Coke

analogy and even the majority seems to realize the comparison misses the mark. I would add that it misses the

mark by a rather wide margin. In any case, there is no

doubt that the slogan is disparaging. That said, it is not

the kind of speech that would materially and substantially interfere with school activities. I suspect that similar

uses of the word “gay” abound in the halls of Neuqua

Valley High School and virtually every other high school in

the United States without causing any substantial interruption to the educational process. There is a significant

difference between expressing one’s religiously-based

disapproval of homosexuality and targeting LGBT students

for harassment. Though probably offensive to most LGBT

students, the former is not likely by itself to create a hostile

environment. Certainly, this is not a case like Nabozny v.

Podlesney, 92 F.3d 446 (7th Cir. 1996), where students

repeatedly called a gay classmate a “faggot,” struck him,

spit on him, threw him into a urinal, beat him to such a

degree that he suffered internal bleeding, and subjected

him to a mock rape in a classroom while a few dozen

people looked on and laughed at him. So severe and

constant and enduring was his classmates’ abuse, that

Nabozny twice attempted suicide. The defendants here are

unlikely to find themselves on the “razor’s edge” of

Nabozny, supra at 12, as a result of Nuxoll’s t-shirt.

And what lesson would we teach young adults about

the importance of our constitutional rights if the judiCase: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
22 No. 08-1050

4 The majority limits its suggested “hands off” approach with

the words “within reason” but seems to approve much broader

discretion for school authorities than Tinker or its progeny

would allow.

ciary took the “hands off” approach to school regulation

of speech favored by my brothers? Supra at 6.4

 This time

I turn to Justice Jackson, speaking for the Court more than

sixty years ago:

The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the

States, protects the citizen against the State itself and

all of its creatures—Boards of Education not excepted.

These have, of course, important, delicate, and highly

discretionary functions, but none that they may not

perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights. That

they are educating the young for citizenship is

reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional

freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle

the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount

important principles of our government as mere

platitudes.

West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624,

637 (1943) (quoted in Tinker, 393 U.S. at 507). The First

Amendment provides the school with an opportunity

for a discussion about the values of free speech and respect for differing points of view but it does not grant a

license to shut down dissension because of an “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance.” Tinker, 393

U.S. at 508. Contrary to the majority’s view that “free

speech and ordered learning” are “competing interests,”

supra at 7, I would argue that these values are compatible. The First Amendment as interpreted by Tinker

is consistent with the school’s mission to teach by enCase: 08-1050 Document: 32 Filed: 05/02/2008 Pages: 23
No. 08-1050 23

couraging debate on controversial topics while also

allowing the school to limit the debate when it becomes

substantially disruptive. Nuxoll’s slogan-adorned t-shirt

comes nowhere near that standard. For all of these reasons, I respectfully concur in the judgment.

USCA-02-C-0072—5-2-08

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