Opinion ID: 3010926
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the poster

Text: We now turn to the school's decision to temporarily remove Z.H.'s poster from the kindergarten arts display. Our analysis and conclusion parallel those of the preceding section. First, we conclude that the display area in the hall outside the kindergarten classroom, like the first-grade classroom, was a non-public forum. Nothing in the record suggests that it had been opened up to the display of any material not constituting, or generated in response to, the school's educational curriculum. Moreover, we also conclude that the art display, like the stories read in class, was promoted rather than tolerated speech. It follows that the issue to be resolved is whether the school's decision to temporarily remove Z.H.'s poster was reasonably related to a legitimate pedagogical concern. Z.H.'s kindergarten teacher accepted his poster as responsive to the assignment--that he depict something for which he was thankful. She placed it in the hall with the posters of his classmates. During the teacher's absence from school, Z.H.'s poster was taken down because of concern over its religious content. It was restored to the display, however, by his teacher on her return. Given the sensitivity of the issues raised by student religious expression, coupled with the notable immaturity of the 15 students involved and the relatively public display of the posters in the school hallway, the school's temporary removal of the poster does not violate the First Amendment rights of the student artist. As we have indicated, decisions on issues of this kind necessarily involve fact-sensitive exercises of discretion by school authorities and reservation of a brief period for deliberation is thus a measure reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. Cf. Muller v. Jefferson Lighthouse School, 98 F.3d 1530, 1541 (7th Cir. 1996) (failure of school regulations to provide a definite time limit within which decisions to grant or deny permission to engage in expressive activity was reasonable); Salinas v. Sch. Dist. of Kansas City, 751 F.2d 288 (8th Cir. 1984) (delay occasioned by school board's deliberations over sensitive requests for use of facilities for expressive activity did not violate the requester's First Amendment rights).3