Opinion ID: 78271
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Circumstances Surrounding the School Board Debate

Text: We are required to give some weight to the circumstances surrounding the School Board's vote to remove the [b]ook [which] cannot help but raise questions regarding the constitutional validity of its decision. Campbell v. St. Tammany Parish Sch. Bd., 64 F.3d 184, 191 (5th Cir.1995). First, the School Board failed to consider, much less follow, the recommendations of two previous committees of professional educators and lay people retained to help guide the review process, whom the School Board's attorney admitted conducted extensive analysis and deliberations. [R:19:116.] The committees consistently found that Vamos a Cuba was educationally suitable, noting that it was scrupulously apolitical, factually accurate, and developmentally appropriate. [ E.g. Ad Hoc School Materials Review Committee Evaluation of Instructional Materials.] The School Board's failure to consider the advice of professional educators or librarians, or even the Superintendent, reinforces the suspicion that the School Board's motivation was constitutionally impermissible. See Campbell, 64 F.3d at 190-91 (noting that fail[ing] to consider, much less adopt, the recommendation of two previous committees to restrict the Book's accessibility... in apparent disregard of its own outlined procedureshas the appearance of [improper] motivations); Pico, 457 U.S. at 874-75, 102 S.Ct. at 2811-12 (finding that ignoring the advice of literary experts, librarians, teachers, and the Superintendent, may support suspicions that a school board's motivations were unconstitutional). Second, one School Board member attempted to have the Board violate the Board's own rules and circumvent the appeals process set out by School Board rule, proposing that the School Board immediately remove Vamos a Cuba without waiting for the administrative process to proceed. The Board eventually voted 6 to 3 to allow the administrative process to run its course, but only after the School Board's attorney advised the School Board to remain mindful of its own board rule and follow all levels of due process procedures in our book removal process. [April Transcript, 56:19-56:24.] Further, counsel reminded the School Board that the School Board rules did not allow the School Board to act independently and remove a book that it finds objectionable. Rather, it must follow the process that is in that rule in order to achieve that purpose. [April Transcript, 58:16-58:22.] Third, the School Board eventually did violate its own procedures when it voted to remove the entire A Visit to series of which the book is a part. None of the other 19 books in the geography series were ever reviewed for accuracy by a review committee or the Superintendent per the School Board's rules, nor were they previously questioned on appeal. Most of the School Board members had not even read the rest of the series before they voted. The School Board's reluctance to follow its own procedures in connection with the series as a whole raises more questions about its School Board's motivations. Id. at 190-91 (noting that apparent disregard of [a school board's] outlined procedures ... has the appearance of `the antithesis of those procedures that might tend to allay suspicions regarding the [s]chool [b]oard's motivations') (quoting Pico, 457 U.S. at 875, 102 S.Ct. at 2812 (alterations omitted)); Case v. Unified Sch. Dist. No. 233, 908 F.Supp. 864, 875 (D.Kan.1995), aff'd in part and rev'd in part on other grounds, 157 F.3d 1243 (10th Cir.1998) (finding that the irregular and erratic manner in which [the school board] removed [a book] from the District's libraries and their disregard of established policy and procedure are important evidence of their improper motivation). The fact that the School Board removed books that many of its members had never even read further suggests that the School Board majority may have had impermissible motives for removing the book from the library shelf. Campbell, 64 F.3d at 191 (finding question[able] ... the constitutional validity of [the school board's] decision when many school board members had not read the book in question or had not read its entirety). The content and circumstances of the debate cast doubt on the School Board's proffered motivation that it removed the book because of factual inaccuracies.