UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
COREY CAMFIELD; MISTY CAMFIELD,

Plaintiffs

- Appellants,

v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF REDONDO BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT; et al.,
Defendants

- Appellees. No. 17

- 56072
D.C. No. 2:16

- cv - 02367

- ODW

- FFM Central District of California, Los Angeles
ORDER

Before: WARDLAW and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN, * District Judge. The memorandum disposition with dissent filed on September 18, 2019 , is amended by the memorandum disposition with dissent filed concurrently with this
order.
With the amendment , t he panel has voted to deny the petition for panel rehearing. Judges Wardlaw and Hurwitz have voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc, and Judge Korman so recommends. The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. Fed. R. App. P. 35.

* The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. 

# FILED

JAN 27 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2

The petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc, Dkt. 66 , is DENIED , and no further petitions will be accepted.1 NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

COREY CAMFIELD and MISTY CAMFIELD , Plaintiff

s - Appellants

v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF REDONDO BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al

. , Defendant s - Appellees No. 17

- 56072
D.C. No. 2:16

- cv - 02367

- ODW

- FFM
AMENDED MEMORANDUM *

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Otis D. Wright, II , District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted May 1 7 , 2019 Pasadena, California
Before: WARDLAW and HURWITZ , Circuit Judges, and KORMAN, * * District Judge. Corey and Misty Camfield appeal an adverse judgment in this action against the Redondo Beach Unified School District and several of its administrators raising

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3.

** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. 

# FILED

JAN 27 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2

claims under the Americans with Disability Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12132, the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, and California law. 1 We have jurisdiction unde r 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.
1. The claims arise primarily out of a disruptive parent letter (“DPL”) issued

to Misty by the School District in March 2015 , requiring her to seek permission from the principal of Jefferson Elementary School twenty

- four hou rs prior to any on

campus visit. Three Camfield children were enrolled in the school at the time; one (Minor 1 ) suffers from cerebral palsy

. The DPL concerned Misty’s conduct in February 2015, when she learned that

a Ms. Comeaux was assigned as an instructional aide for Minor 1 for one entire day each week and a half day every other day of the week. The DPL recites that Misty “began approaching an instructional assistant, Ms. Comeaux, about her daily schedule starting in the morning of her first day on the job” and repeatedly called the cell phones of the two other instructional assistants to ask about Ms. Comeaux’s assignment. Th e letter then focused on the fo llowing undisputed behavior by Misty : 1. On February 25, Misty asked Ms. Comeaux on school grounds if she would be the aide for “Minor 1” for the entire day, and if so, Misty said, “[T]hat shit’s not flying.”
2. The same day, Misty said to Ms. Siu, another in structional aide, on school grounds, “Do you know if this is gonna happen all the time? Because there ain’t no fucking way that I’m going to put up with this shit. There is no way

1 The Camfields’ motion to strike portions of the answering brief is denied.3

[Minor 1] is going to have just one aide at the middle school. I have a lawyer that’s gonna take care of all this.”
3. As a result of Misty’s actions, “Ms. Comeaux felt so uncomfortable that she would hide inside a locked classroom until Misty left the cam pus in order to avoid the unpleasant interactions with her.”
4. “ On February 27, in a conversation with the school custodian, ” Misty said, “The kids are saying that Ms. Comeaux is an airhead and a ditz,” and that another special education teacher was “ break ing the IEP. ”
Prior to issuance of the March DPL , Misty had called the school principal a “fucking bitch” in a classroom and in the presence of Corey and a teacher. After meetings with the Camfields, the District had decided not to issue a DPL in respon se to that conduct.
2

. Misty claims that the March DPL was in retaliation for her advocacy on
behalf of Minor 1 , and therefore violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. But she does not contest that the events cited in the DPL took place . Nor can she contest that the School District reasonably concluded that her conduct was “likely to interfere with the peaceful conduct of the activities of the campus or facil i ty

. ” See Cal. Penal Code § 62 6. 7(a)

. 2 Moreover , Misty produced no evidence that the tw enty

four

- hour notice requirement interfere d with her ability to advocate on behalf of
Minor 1

. Even after the DPL was issued, Misty was not denied permission to attend any event involving Minor 1 or to meet with any representative of the D istrict

2 As § 676.7(d) makes clear, § 676.7(a) applies to parents ’ conduct.4

concern ing the child’s education. 3 See Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White , 548 U.S. 53, 67 (2006) (“The [Title VII ] antiretaliation provision protects an individual not from all retaliation, but from retaliation that produces an injury or
harm.” ); T.B. ex rel. Brenneise v. San Diego Unified School Dist. , 806 F.3d 451,
472

- 73 (9th Cir. 2015) (applying Title VII retaliat ion framework to the ADA) ; see also Castle v. Eurofresh, Inc. , 731 F.3d 901, 908 (9th Cir. 2013) (“ The Rehabilitation Act is materially identical to and the model for the ADA

. . . )

. Merely being required to make an appointment one day in advance to enter a n elementary school campus does not produce an injury or harm forbidden by federal
law , particularly when future advocacy is not banned

. 3 . We reject Misty’s argument that the miscitation of statutory a uthority in
the DPL is evidence of a pretext for discrimination. The letter was plainly authorized under California law, see Cal. Penal Code § 62 6. 7(a). Similarly, we find no evidence of pretext in the fact that the DPL only refers to activities occurring since January
2015 while the School Distric t’s brief also references additional activities

. Rather,

3 Indeed, at oral argument, when asked “ whether any of the occasions when [permission] wasn ’ t given . . . [were] when she was asking about her disabled child, ” petitioners’ counsel answered, “ no, not with the disabled child. ” Oral Arg. Tr. 1:36.5

that uncontested history provides useful context for the District’s eventual decision
to issue the DPL in March after previously refraining from doing so

. 4
4

. We also reject Misty’s claim for retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights. Jefferson Elementary is a non

- public forum where regulations on speech are permissible so long as they are “reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker’s view

. ”
Flint v. Dennison , 488 F.3d 816, 830

– 31 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Perry Ed uc. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n , 460 U.S. 37, 46 ( 1983) ). Requiring the Camfields

to seek permission twenty

- four hours prior to entering campu s was a reasonable regulation unrelated to viewpoint discrimination , and the record contains no evidence that the restrictions were used to suppress expression , but merely to control disruption of the educational environment

. 5

. Even assuming that California Education Code § 51101 creates a private
cause of action , the DPLs issued to Corey and Misty did not violate it

. Section 51101
allows parents to enter campus “within a reasonable period of time following making
the r equest

. ” T wenty

- four hours is “a reasonable period of time.” The Camfield s

4 Our diss enting colleague finds evidence of pretext in the “temporal proximity between the DPL’s issuance ” and “ the conduct it provides as a basis for exclusion , ” as well as a “rising hostility to Camfield in response to her complaints

. ” Dissent 1

– 2 . But because Misty did not make these arguments in her opening brief, we decline to address them. S

ee Christian Legal Soc’y Chapter of Univ. of Cal

. v. Wu , 626 F.3d 483, 485 (9th Cir. 2010).6

obtained permission and entered campus on numerous occasions after the DPL s

were issued. The Camfields’ proposed cause of action for negligently breaching the “duty of care [the School District] owed to parents, including [the Camfields], to assure that they are afforded appropr iate access to the campus in order to exercise [their] rights” under Section 51101 is simply another way of stating the same claim

. 6

. T he district court correctly dismissed the Camfields’ Bane Act claim because they “fail[ed] to plead sufficient facts th at Defendants’ communications contained ‘threats, intimidation or coercion. ’ ” See Cal. Civ. Code § 52.1(b)

– (c).
T he School District’s communications to the Camfields prior to the DPL were not
threats

. Nor did those communications unreasonably interfere with the exercise of
any constitutional or statutory rights.
7 . The Camfields’ claim that the defendants “unilaterally den[ied] them their statutory and constitutional rights without due process of law” fails for the reasons
noted above and by the district court.
AFFIRMED.Camfield v. Bd. of Trustees of Redondo Beach Unified Sch. Dist. , No. 17

- 56072 WARDLAW, Circuit Judge, dissenting in part: I part ways with my colleagues on a narrow issue: Misty Camfield adduced sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on her unlawful retaliation claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Rehabilitation Act against the District. The Di strict conceded that Camfield established a prima

- facie case of retaliation, but offered several reasons for its adverse action, the D isruptive Parent Letter (D PL ), that it asserts, and the majority accepts, were legitimate and nondiscriminatory. Unlike t he majority, I conclude that Camfield provided specific and substantial evidence of pretext, Stegall v. Citadel Broad

. Co. , 350 F.3d 1061, 1066 (9th Cir. 2003)

. The contemporaneous reasons for issuing the DP L are stated clearly in it,
and they relate excl usively to Camfield’s advocacy on behalf of her disabled son. Yet, throughout this litigation the District has offered other, inconsistent justifications for Camfield’s exclusion. 1 Moreover, the DP L purports to rely on
sections of the California Penal C ode that explicitly exclude applicability to parents or guardians of a pupil of the school. T here is temporal proximity between
the DPL’s issuance on March 3 , 2015 and the conduct it provides as a basis for exclusion dating from January 2015 (including tw o complaints Camfield made less

1 Even the majority opinion relies on “undisputed facts” not set forth in the DPL itself to bolster the basis for Camfield’s exclusion. 

# FILED

JAN 27 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALSthan a week before the DPL)

. That school administrators exhibited rising hostility to Camfield in response to her complaints about her disabled child’s education is apparently undisputed, and it is also clearly described in the D PL . Each of these factors has been deemed evidence of pretext in our circuit, and thus a genuine dispute of material fact exists. See , e.g. , Dominguez

- Curry v. Nev. Transp. Dep’t , 424 F.3d 1027, 1037 (9 th Cir. 2005) (noting that a plaintiff may dem onstrate pretext “by showing that the [defendant’s] proffered explanation is . . . inconsistent or otherwise not believable”) ; Stegall , 350 F.3d at 1071 ( holding hostility and temporal proximity are highly probative of pretext).