Opinion ID: 770682
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whose Speech Was It?

Text: 23 The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech. U.S. Const. amend. I. When an individual speaks, the government's ability to regulate that speech depends in some situations on the designation of the forum in which the individual chooses to speak. See, e.g., Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 800 (1985); DiLoreto v. Downey Unified Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 196 F.3d 958, 964 (9th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 120 S. Ct. 1674 (2000). The two cases most closely related to our case that have developed this principle in a school setting are Hazelwood and Planned Parenthood v. Clark County School District, 941 F.2d 817 (9th Cir. 1991) (en banc). Notwithstanding that those two cases help frame our discussion, we begin our analysis by explaining why they do not ultimately dictate our decision. 24 Although [i]t can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gate, Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506-07 (1969), where that speech or expression begins to implicate the school as speaker, First Amendment rights have been limited. See, e.g., Hazelwood, 484 U.S. at 270-73 (dealing specifically with student speech); Planned Parenthood , 941 F.2d at 828-29 (outside organization's attempt to advertise in school publications); see also DiLoreto, 196 F.3d at 969 n.5 (The Supreme Court has made clear that the question whether the First Amendment requires a school to tolerate certain speech, such as the speech of students, is different from the question whether the First Amendment requires a school to promote or endorse another's speech.). Cases have identified this lesserprotected type of speech as school-sponsored speech or speech that will likely bear the imprimatur of the school. Hazelwood and Planned Parenthood are the two foremost examples of cases drawing this distinction. 25 In Hazelwood, a high school principal removed from a school newspaper two pages containing an article describing some of the school's students' experiences with pregnancy and an article discussing the impact of divorce on a number of the school's students. 484 U.S. at 263. After concluding that the school newspaper was a nonpublic forum, the Court determined that school officials could regulate the newspaper's contents in any reasonable manner. Id. at 270. The Court then distinguished between toleration of student speech -addressed in Tinker -and the affirmative or perceived promotion or sponsorship of student speech. Id. at 270-71. The latter question, the Court wrote 26 concerns educators' authority over school-sponsored publications, theatrical productions, and other expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school. These activities may fairly be characterized as part of the school curriculum, whether or not they occur in a traditional classroom setting, so long as they are supervised by faculty members and designed to impart particular knowledge or skills to student participants and audiences. 27 Id. at 271. The Court determined that educators' authority in this area enabled them to assure that participants learn whatever lessons the activity is designed to teach, that readers or listeners are not exposed to material that may be inappropriate for their level of maturity, and that the views of the individual speaker are not erroneously attributed to the school. Id. 28 Pursuant to this analysis, the Hazelwood Court declared that a school may disassociate itself . . . from speech that is, for example, ungrammatical, poorly written, inadequately researched, biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or unsuitable for immature audiences. Id. (internal quotations and citations omitted). In addition, schools 29 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. 30 Id. at 272 (internal quotations and citations omitted). The school principal's actions in Hazelwood survived constitutional scrutiny because his editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities [was] reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. Id. at 273. The Court indicated that the same principles would govern a school's ability to regulate a teacher's speech that might be seen to bear the imprimatur of the school. Id. at 267; see also Planned Parenthood, 941 F.2d at 827. 31 Three years later, an en banc panel of this Circuit decided a similar school imprimatur case in Planned Parenthood. 941 F.2d 817. The case involved school educators' refusals to accept advertisements for Planned Parenthood in student newspapers, yearbooks, and athletic programs. Id. at 819. Like Hazelwood, Planned Parenthood dealt with an issue of school sponsorship. Id. Also like Hazelwood, the Planned Parenthood court decided that the school had created only a nonpublic forum in its acceptance of advertisements. Id. at 825. 32 Despite the absence of express viewpoint neutrality discussion anywhere in Hazelwood, the Planned Parenthood court incorporated viewpoint neutrality analysis into nonpublic forum, school-sponsored speech cases in our Circuit. 2 See id. at 828 n.19, 829-30. But see Chandler v. McMinnville Sch. Dist., 978 F.2d 524, 529 (9th Cir. 1992) (indicating in dicta, without any mention of viewpoint neutrality, that Hazelwood holds that federal courts are to defer to a school's decision to suppress or punish vulgar, lewd, or plainly offensive speech, and to `disassociate itself' from speech that a reasonable person would view as bearing the imprimatur of the school, when the decision is `reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.' ). Thus, were Downs's case a case of school-sponsored or imprimatur speech in a nonpublic forum -as the district court concluded -we would necessarily be compelled by Planned Parenthood to review LAUSD's actions through a viewpoint neutrality microscope. 33 Viewpoint neutrality, however, does not apply to LAUSD's actions in this case. This case is not controlled by Hazelwood or Planned Parenthood because it is a case of the government itself speaking, whether the government is characterized as Leichman High, LAUSD, or the school board. It is not a case involving the risk that a private individual's private speech might simply bear the imprimatur  of the school or be perceived by outside individuals as school-sponsored. Rather than focusing on what members of the public might perceive Downs's speech to be, in this case we find it more helpful to focus on who actually was responsible for the speech on Leichman High's Gay and Lesbian Awareness bulletin boards. 34 Only school faculty and staff had access to post materials on these boards. While these faculty and staff members may have received materials from outside organizations, the faculty and staff members alone posted material on the bulletin boards, and at all times their postings were subject to the oversight of the school principals. Although much, if not all, of what Downs posted appeared on the bulletin board directly across the hall from his assigned classroom, the proximity of the board to his classroom detracts in no way from the conclusion that the bulletin board, like all others in Leichman High's halls, were the property and responsibility of Leichman High and LAUSD. That Leichman High's principals do not spend the majority of their days roaming the school's halls strictly policing -or, in Downs's point of view, censoring -the school's bulletin boards does not weaken our conclusion that there is no genuine issue of material fact concerning whether Olmsted and Marino had the authority to enforce and give voice to school district and school board policy. Inaction does not necessarily demonstrate a lack of ability or authority to act. 35 No admissible evidence refutes Olmsted's and Marino's assertions that they had authority over the bulletin boards' content at all times. Downs submitted a declaration from Earnest Scarcelli, formerly employed as a principal by LAUSD. Scarcelli stated that he had no recollection of any unwritten district-wide policy that states that whenever a principal permits something to remain posted or displayed on bulletin boards, display cases or classrooms [sic] the material becomes officially approved by the district. Scarcelli also believe[d] that it would be impossible for the principal of a large school to constantly keep track of bulletin boards, to the extent that if something were go [sic] unnoticed and be displayed for a period of time that it would necessarily become officially approved by the district. Scarcelli's declaration does not create a triable issue of fact on the authority of school principals as site administrators of school district policy. According to Mr. Scarcelli, he retired as an LAUSD school principal as of 1992, well before the relevant events underlying this case. Thus, his declaration is of no value whatsoever, evidentiary or otherwise. 36 Olmsted's and Marino's implicit acceptance of other material posted by school faculty and staff that remained on the bulletin boards was equivalent to Leichman High, LAUSD, and the school board itself speaking. Cf. Arkansas Educ. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U.S. 666, 674 (1998) (When a public broadcaster exercises editorial discretion in the selection and presentation of its programming, it engages in speech activity. . . . Although programming decisions often involve the compilation of the speech of third parties, the decisions nonetheless constitute communicative acts.). Conversely, Olmsted's and Marino's explicit rejection of Downs's posted adversarial materials was equivalent to Leichman High, LAUSD, and the school board itself either choosing not to speak or speaking through the very act of removal. The important point is that any speech on the bulletin boards was directly traceable to LAUSD and the school board through Olmsted's and Marino's enforcement of LAUSD and school board policy. 37 Because the school district and the school board were in fact responsible for 1) the recognition of Gay and Lesbian Awareness month and 2) the content of the bulletin boards through school principals' oversight, this case is clearly distinguishable from cases involving student-written articles in a school-sponsored newspaper or an outside organization's advertisements in school-sponsored student newspapers, yearbooks, and athletic programs. See Hazelwood, 484 U.S. 260; Planned Parenthood, 941 F.2d 817; see also Lacks v. Ferguson Reorganized Sch. Dist. R-2, 147 F.3d 718, 724 (8th Cir. 1998) (termination of teacher who allowed students to use profanity in classroom plays and poems treated as case of educators' editorial control over school-sponsored expressive activities); Silano v. Sag Harbor Union Free Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 42 F.3d 719, 723-24 (2d Cir. 1994) (guest lecturer's showing of film including bare-chested women to tenth-grade mathematics class treated as school sponsored speech subject to Hazelwood analysis); Miles v. Denver Pub. Sch., 944 F.2d 773, 774-76 (10th Cir. 1991) (teacher's inclass comment on school rumor treated as school-sponsored expression in a nonpublic forum). Furthermore, unlike the University of Virginia in Rosenberger, there is no evidence that LAUSD made an affirmative effort to disclaim responsibility for the content of the bulletin boards. See 515 U.S. at 834-35 (The distinction between the University's own favored message and the private speech of students is evident in the case before us. . . . The University declares that the student groups eligible for [Student Activity Fund ] support are not the University's agents, are not subject to its control, and are not its responsibility.). 38 We do not face an example of the government opening up a forum for either unlimited or limited public discussion. Instead, we face an example of the government opening up its own mouth: LAUSD, by issuing Memorandum No. 111, and Leichman High, by setting up the Gay and Lesbian Awareness bulletin boards. The bulletin boards served as an expressive vehicle for the school board's policy of Educating for Diversity. Cf. Steirer v. Bethlehem Area Sch. Dist., 987 F.2d 989, 993 (3d Cir. 1993) (The gamut of courses in a school's curriculum necessarily reflects the value judgments of those responsible for its development, yet requiring students to study course materials, write papers on the subjects, and take the examinations is not prohibited by the First Amendment.), abrogated on other grounds by Troster v. Pennsylvania State Dep't of Corrections, 65 F.3d 1086, 1087, 1090 (3d Cir. 1995). Because the bulletin boards were a manifestation of the school board's policy to promote tolerance, and because Olmsted and Marino had final authority over the content of the bulletin boards, all speech that occurred on the bulletin boards was the school board's and LAUSD's speech. 39