Opinion ID: 792205
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Hazelwood

Text: 50 a) Was there a fact question as to viewpoint discrimination? 51 We must ask, then, whether the record demonstrates triable issues as to whether The District's reasons for censoring Antonio's poster are, in the language of Hazelwood, reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. Id. The parties agree that the relevant pedagogical concerns proffered by The District are: a) that the portion of Antonio's poster depicting the robed figure was not responsive to the assignment; b) that the placement of that image on the poster was not Antonio's own work; and c) that showing the image risked creating the impression that the kindergarten environmental unit had included the teaching of religion. The Pecks contend that it cannot be said as a matter of law that these concerns pass muster under Hazelwood a) because factual disputes foreclose a determination, on summary judgment, as to the reasonableness of the school's judgment that Antonio's poster implicated legitimate pedagogical concerns, 8 and b) because the record may be read to support a finding that The District's enforcement of these interests was carried out in a non-viewpoint-neutral manner. 52 We reject some of the Pecks' arguments concerning The District's treatment of Antonio's poster — their claim, for example, that Weichert and Creme incorrectly determined that JoAnne Peck, rather than Antonio, was responsible for the poster's content — on the ground that they overstate the scrutiny that Hazelwood contemplates applying to The District's cited interests. In Hazelwood itself, the Court did not inquire into the accuracy of the principal's contention that because of time concerns, censorship of the articles in question, rather than judicious editing, was required. The Court found the principal's judgment on this score reasonable, notwithstanding that he did not verify whether the necessary modifications could still have been made in the articles, and that the faculty supervisor did not volunteer the information that printing could be delayed until the changes were made. Hazelwood, 484 U.S. at 275, 108 S.Ct. 562. The Hazelwood standard does not require that the guidelines be the most reasonable or the only reasonable limitations, only that they be reasonable. Fleming, 298 F.3d at 932 (internal quotation marks omitted, alteration omitted, and emphasis added). Just as Hazelwood requires only that the school's employed method of censorship be reasonable, we similarly conclude that the predicate factual determinations made by the school in triggering the censorship need only be reasonable. Here, because Weichert and Creme made a reasonable determination that JoAnne Peck (and not Antonio) was responsible for the poster's content, we decline any invitation to assess the accuracy of this determination. If this were the only factual dispute raised by the Pecks, we most likely would affirm the district court's judgment as to the reasonableness of The District's actions. 53 Other fact questions to which the Pecks point, however, implicate a more troubling concern: the viewpoint neutrality of The District's decision with respect to Antonio's poster. The district court concluded that there were no triable issues as to whether The District had engaged in viewpoint discrimination because, it said, the robed figure shown on Antonio's poster was unquestionably beyond the scope of the poster assignment. It therefore was not speech addressed to an otherwise permissible subject, that was censored on the basis of its viewpoint on the subject. In our judgment, however, the district court overlooked evidence that, if construed in the light most favorable to Pecks, suggested that Antonio's poster was censored not because it was unresponsive to the assignment, and not because Weichert and Creme believed that JoAnne Peck rather than Antonio was responsible for the poster's content, but because it offered a religious perspective on the topic of how to save the environment. 54 We recognize at the outset that drawing a precise line of demarcation between content discrimination, which is permissible in a non-public forum, and viewpoint discrimination, which traditionally has been prohibited even in non-public fora, is, to say the least, a problematic endeavor. As the Supreme Court has observed, particularly in the context of religious expression, it can be difficult to discern what amounts to a subject matter unto itself, and what, by contrast, is best characterized as a standpoint from which a subject matter is approached. See Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 831, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995) (It is, in a sense, something of an understatement to speak of religious thought and discussion as just a viewpoint, as distinct from a comprehensive body of thought. The nature of our origins and destiny and their dependence upon the existence of a divine being have been subjects of philosophic inquiry throughout human history.). Compare Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 107-08, 121 S.Ct. 2093 (characterizing a group's meetings for prayer and religious discussion as offering one perspective on morals and character, which were otherwise permissible topics in the limited public forum at issue); with id. at 131-33, 121 S.Ct. 2093 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (characterizing the meetings not as offering a religious viewpoint but as constituting otherwise-prohibited religious proselytizing). 55 Nevertheless, we think that there are at least disputed factual questions, which may not be resolved on summary judgment, as to whether Antonio's poster offered a religious viewpoint, and whether, if the poster had depicted a purely secular image that was equally outside the scope of Weichert's environmental lessons, it would similarly have been censored. As described above, Weichert testified that there were a number of potential images that Antonio could have placed on his poster, such as specific endangered species, the Sierra Club logo, and atoms, all of which would have been non-responsive to the assignment to the extent that such topics were not specifically covered in class. She indicated that she would not have folded over such images: I can't imagine that there would have been any parent that would have objected to a manatee because they wouldn't have construed it as anything other than an animal. . . Because it had no religious significance, . . . therefore I wouldn't have had to worry about anybody being offended by-no strike, not be offended, anyone would surmise that I may have been teaching religion in kindergarten. Additionally, both she and Creme testified that had such images appeared on a student's poster, the student would have been asked the relevance of the picture to what he had learned in class. As both Weichert and Creme acknowledged, however, Antonio was never asked directly whether the robed figure bore any connection to the environment. One possible interpretation, of course, is that Weichert and Creme viewed the Jesus image as being so wholly outside the scope of the curriculum that further inquiry was unnecessary before censoring the image, and that they would have also censored a secular image that was equally non-responsive. On summary judgment, however, we must draw all factual inferences in favor of the Pecks. In this regard, we think that it is also possible to interpret the testimony of Weichert and Creme as indicating that they were particularly disposed to censor Antonio's poster because of its religious imagery and that they would not necessarily have similarly censored secular images that were equally non-responsive. Were these facts ultimately proved, The District's actions might well amount to viewpoint discrimination. 56 b) Does Hazelwood permit viewpoint discrimination reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns? 57 The District counters that, even assuming there to be evidence that its decision was based on the viewpoint rather than the content of Antonio's poster, the district court's dismissal of the free speech claim would still have been proper because Hazelwood permits schools to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint — so long as such discrimination is, itself, reasonably related to a legitimate pedagogical interest. Whether Hazelwood represents a departure from the long-held requirement of viewpoint neutrality in any and all government restriction of private speech, see, e.g., Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (Viewpoint discrimination is . . . an egregious form of content discrimination. The government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction.), is an issue that has been the subject of much debate among Circuit Courts, which have reached conflicting conclusions. 9 58 As the varying approaches of other courts suggest, the proper answer to the question of whether Hazelwood contemplates reasonable viewpoint discrimination by school administrators in the context of school-sponsored speech is anything but clear. On the one hand, much of Hazelwood 's discussion of the proper role of school officials in making curricular judgments seems to suggest that viewpoint-based judgments would be permissible, and perhaps even desirable, at least under some circumstances. See, e.g., Hazelwood, 484 U.S. at 272, 108 S.Ct. 562 (A school must also retain the authority to refuse to sponsor student speech that might reasonably be perceived to advocate drug or alcohol use, irresponsible sex, or conduct otherwise inconsistent with the shared values of a civilized social order, or to associate the school with any position other than neutrality on matters of political controversy. (internal quotation and citation omitted)). On the other hand, the Court in fact had no occasion to consider whether such circumstances were present in the case before it: The high school apparently had conceded that only viewpoint neutral restrictions on access to the school newspaper would have passed constitutional muster. See id. at 287 n. 3, 108 S.Ct. 562 (Brennan, J., dissenting). 59 We also find it significant that Hazelwood analyzed the nature of the expressive forum created by the high school newspaper at issue in the case, and relied, in that analysis, on its prior decisions in Cornelius and Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association, 460 U.S. 37, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983). See Hazelwood, 484 U.S. at 267-70, 108 S.Ct. 562. Both Cornelius, in the context of a non-public forum, and Perry, in the context of a limited public forum, stated that government speech regulations that discriminated among viewpoints were prohibited under the First Amendment. See Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 811, 105 S.Ct. 3439 (stating that [t]he existence of reasonable grounds for limiting access to a nonpublic forum, however, will not save a regulation that is in reality a facade for viewpoint-based discrimination, and remanding the case for a determination of whether the government's otherwise-reasonable speech restrictions were impermissibly viewpoint discriminatory). Yet Hazelwood never distinguished the powerful holdings of these cases with respect to viewpoint neutrality, or, for that matter, even mentioned, explicitly, the question of viewpoint neutrality. And we are reluctant to conclude that the Supreme Court would, without discussion and indeed totally sub silentio, overrule Cornelius and Perry — even in the limited context of school-sponsored student speech. 10 60 For the foregoing reasons, we decline The District's invitation to depart, without clear direction from the Supreme Court, from what has, to date, remained a core facet of First Amendment protection. Compare Searcey v. Harris, 888 F.2d 1314, 1325 (11th Cir.1989) (Without more explicit direction, we will continue to require school officials to make decisions relating to speech which are viewpoint neutral.). Thus, on the facts and the legal arguments as they are currently developed before us, we conclude that a manifestly viewpoint discriminatory restriction on school-sponsored speech is, prima facie, unconstitutional, even if reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical interests. 61 In remanding the free speech claim to the district court for further consideration of the viewpoint neutrality issue, however, we do not foreclose the possibility that certain aspects of the record might be developed in such a manner as to disclose a state interest so overriding as to justify, under the First Amendment, The District's potentially viewpoint discriminatory censorship. For example, The District has proffered its interest in avoiding the perception of religious endorsement as a rationale for not including Antonio's full poster in the environmental assembly. On the facts before us we cannot say, at this time, as a matter of law that The District's concern in this regard would justify viewpoint discrimination. Compare Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 270-71, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981) (concluding that avoidance of a violation of the Establishment Clause could constitute a compelling state interest to justify a content-based restriction in a limited public forum), with Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712, 730 n. 2, 124 S.Ct. 1307, 158 L.Ed.2d 1 (2004) (Scalia, J., dissenting) ([A] State has a compelling interest in not committing actual Establishment Clause violations. We have never inferred from this principle that a State has a constitutionally sufficient interest in discriminating against religion in whatever other context it pleases, so long as it claims some connection, however attenuated, to establishment concerns. (internal citation omitted)), and Good News Club, 533 U.S. at 112-19, 121 S.Ct. 2093 (observing that, since the Court had never upheld viewpoint discrimination on the ground that it was necessary to prevent an Establishment Clause violation, it remained not clear whether the Establishment Clause constituted a constitutionally-viable justification for such discrimination). 62 We think it prudent to leave it to the district court, in the first instance, to ascertain whether The District's actions were necessary to avoid an Establishment Clause violation, and if so, whether avoidance of that violation was a sufficiently compelling state interest as to justify viewpoint discrimination by The District. 11