Opinion ID: 24815
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Forum Analysis: The School Mail Delivery System

Text: 58 Analysis of Jenkins's request to have her MathChoice flyers distributed through the school mail delivery system also turns on whether the school mail system is a designated public forum or a limited/nonpublic forum. In Perry, the Supreme Court held that a school district's internal mail system was a nonpublic forum. See 460 U.S. at 47. The Court found that because the school district had not opened its mail system up to the general public, it was not a traditional public forum or a designated public forum. Further, the Court held that the grant of selective access to organizations such as the YMCA and the Cub Scouts did not require the school to open up the system to the union literature at issue in that case. See id. Because the PISD in this case has not opened up its school mail delivery system to the general public, under Perry, it is properly considered a limited/nonpublic forum. 59 We recognize that on one occasion, this circuit narrowly construed Perry in reference to another dispute involving a school mail system. See Ysleta Fed'n of Teachers v. Ysleta Indep. Sch. Dist., 720 F.2d 1429, 1433 (5th Cir. 1983). In Ysleta, this court distinguished Perry, finding that a school district had adopted a policy to open the mail system to all employee organizations. The court found that once the school opened its mail system to information from all employee programs, it was a designated public forum for that purpose. See id. 60 However, in Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School District, this court followed the reasoning in Perry. See 777 F.2d 1046, 1053 (5th Cir. 1985). The Garland court looked at the extent of openness in the school mail system and determined that the selective access of certain groups did not transform the system into an open public forum for use by the petitioning employee organization. See id. at 1052. We find the instant case to be more analogous to Garland, as there is no evidence that the PISD's selective opening of the school mail system was intended to create a designated public forum for use by the general public. Unlike Math Nights, there is no evidence that the PISD intended the school mail system to facilitate debate on issues of public concern. Therefore, under Perry and Garland, we hold that the school mail delivery system is a nonpublic forum. 61