Opinion ID: 2733752
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: We analyze the students’ claims4 under the well- recognized framework of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).5 Under 4 Because California follows federal law for free expression claims arising in the school setting, the students’ federal and state claims stand or fall together. Cal. Teachers Ass’n v. Governing Bd. of San Diego Unified Sch. Dist., 45 Cal. App. 4th 1383, 1391–92 (1996). 5 As we noted in Wynar, 728 F.3d at 1067, student speech that is “vulgar, lewd, obscene [or] plainly offensive” is governed by Bethel School District Number 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986); speech that is “school-sponsored” is governed by Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988); and speech that “falls into neither of these categories” is governed by Tinker. See Chandler v. McMinnville Sch. Dist., 978 F.2d 524, 529 (9th Cir. 1992) (listing standards). DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. 25 Tinker, students may “express [their] opinions, even on controversial subjects . . . if [they] do[] so without materially and substantially interfer[ing] with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school and without colliding with the rights of others.” Id. at 513 (final alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). To “justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion,” school officials “must be able to show that [their] action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” Id. at 509. That said, “conduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason— whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior—materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.” Id. at 513. Under Tinker, schools may prohibit speech that “might reasonably [lead] school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities,” or that constitutes an “actual or nascent [interference] with the schools’ work or . . . collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone.” Id. at 508, 514; see also Wynar, 728 F.3d at 1067 (quoting Tinker, 393 U.S. at 508, 514.). As we have explained, “the First Amendment does not require school officials to wait until disruption actually occurs before they may act. In fact, they have a duty to prevent the occurrence of disturbances.” Karp v. Becken, 477 F.2d 171, 175 (9th Cir. 1973) (footnote omitted). Indeed, in the school context, “the level of disturbance required to justify official intervention is relatively lower in a public school than it might be on a street corner.” Id. As the Seventh Circuit explained, “[s]chool authorities are entitled to exercise discretion in determining 26 DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. when student speech crosses the line between hurt feelings and substantial disruption of the educational mission.” Zamecnik v. Indian Prairie Sch. Dist. #204, 636 F.3d 874, 877–78 (7th Cir. 2011). Although Tinker guides our analysis, the facts of this case distinguish it sharply from Tinker, in which students’ “pure speech” was held to be constitutionally protected. 393 U.S. at 508. In contrast to Tinker, in which there was “no evidence whatever of petitioners’ interference, actual or nascent, with the schools’ work or of collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone,” id., there was evidence of nascent and escalating violence at Live Oak. On the morning of May 5, 2010, each of the three students was confronted about their clothing by other students, one of whom approached student M.D. and asked, “Why are you wearing that? Do you not like Mexicans[?]” Before the brunch break, Rodriguez learned of the threat of a physical altercation. During the break, Rodriguez was warned about impending violence by a second student. The warnings of violence came, as the district court noted, “in [the] context of ongoing racial tension and gang violence within the school, and after a near-violent altercation had erupted during the prior Cinco de Mayo over the display of an American flag.” Threats issued in the aftermath of the incident were so real that the parents of the students involved in this suit kept them home from school two days later. The minimal restrictions on the students were not conceived of as an “urgent wish to avoid the controversy,” as in Tinker, id. at 510, or as a trumped-up excuse to tamp down student expression. The controversy and tension remained, but the school’s actions presciently avoided an altercation. Unlike in Tinker, where “[e]ven an official memorandum DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. 27 prepared after the [students’] suspension that listed the reasons for the ban on wearing the armbands made no reference to the anticipation of such disruption,” id. at 509, school officials here explicitly referenced anticipated disruption, violence, and concerns about student safety in conversations with students at the time of the events, in conversations the same day with the students and their parents, and in a memorandum and press release circulated the next day. In keeping with our precedent, school officials’ actions were tailored to avert violence and focused on student safety, in at least two ways. For one, officials restricted the wearing of certain clothing, but did not punish the students. School officials have greater constitutional latitude to suppress student speech than to punish it. In Karp, we held that school officials could “curtail the exercise of First Amendment rights when they c[ould] reasonably forecast material interference or substantial disruption,” but could not discipline the student without “show[ing] justification for their action.” 477 F.2d at 176; cf. Wynar, 728 F.3d at 1072 (upholding expulsion, despite its “more punitive character,” as a justified response to threats); LaVine v. Blaine Sch. Dist., 257 F.3d 981, 992 (9th Cir. 2001). For another, officials did not enforce a blanket ban on American flag apparel, but instead allowed two students to return to class when it became clear that their shirts were unlikely to make them targets of violence. The school distinguished among the students based on the perceived threat level, and did not embargo all flag-related clothing. See Background, supra. 28 DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. Finally, whereas the conduct in Tinker expressly did “not concern aggressive, disruptive action or even group demonstrations,” 393 U.S. at 508, school officials at Live Oak reasonably could have understood the students’ actions as falling into any of those three categories, particularly in the context of the 2009 altercation. The events of 2010 took place in the shadow of similar disruptions a year earlier, and pitted racial or ethnic groups against each other. Moreover, students warned officials that there might be physical fighting at the break.6 We recognize that, in certain contexts, limiting speech because of reactions to the speech may give rise to concerns about a “heckler’s veto.”7 But the language of Tinker and the school setting guides us here. Where speech “for any reason . . . materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others,” school officials may limit the speech. Tinker, 393 U.S. at 513. To require school officials to precisely identify the source of a violent threat before taking readily-available steps to quell the threat would burden officials’ ability to protect the students in their charge—a particularly salient concern in an era of rampant school violence, much of it involving guns, other weapons, or 6 Our recent case of Frudden v. Pilling, 742 F.3d 1199 (9th Cir. 2014), is not instructive here, since that case, unlike this one, involved compelled speech in the form of a mandatory uniform policy and did not involve the intersection of the First Amendment and violence or a threat of violence in the school setting. Id. at 1204. 7 The term “heckler’s veto” is used to describe situations in which the government stifles speech because it is “offensive to some of [its] hearers, or simply because bystanders object to peaceful and orderly demonstrations.” Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U.S. 564, 567 (1970) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. 29 threats on the internet—and run counter to the longstanding directive that there is a distinction between “threats or acts of violence on school premises” and speech that engenders no “substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” Id. at 508, 514; see also id. at 509, 513. In the school context, the crucial distinction is the nature of the speech, not the source of it. The cases do not distinguish between “substantial disruption” caused by the speaker and “substantial disruption” caused by the reactions of onlookers or a combination of circumstances. See, e.g., Taylor v. Roswell Indep. Sch. Dist., 713 F.3d 25, 38, 38 n. 11 (10th Cir. 2013) (observing that “Plaintiffs note that most disruptions occurred only because of wrongful behavior of third parties and that no Plaintiffs participated in these activities . . . . This argument might be effective outside the school context, but it ignores the ‘special characteristics of the school environment,’” and that the court “ha[d] not found[] case law holding that school officials’ ability to limit disruptive expression depends on the blameworthiness of the speaker. To the contrary, the Tinker rule is guided by a school’s need to protect its learning environment and its students, and courts generally inquire only whether the potential for substantial disruption is genuine.” (quoting Tinker, 393 U.S. at 506)); Zamecnik, 636 F.3d at 879–80 (looking to the reactions of onlookers to determine whether the speech could be regulated); Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1272 (11th Cir. 2004) (looking to the reactions of onlookers to determine whether a student’s expression “cause[d] (or [was] likely to cause) a material and substantial disruption”) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). 30 DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. Perhaps no cases illustrate this principle more clearly than those involving displays of the Confederate flag in the school context. We respect the American flag, and know that its meaning and its history differ greatly from that of the Confederate flag. Nevertheless, the legal principle that emerges from the Confederate flag cases is that what matters is substantial disruption or a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption, taking into account either the behavior of a speaker—e.g., causing substantial disruption alongside the silent or passive wearing of an emblem—or the reactions of onlookers. Not surprisingly, these cases also arose from efforts to stem racial tension that was disruptive. Like Dariano, the reasoning in these cases is founded on Tinker. See, e.g., Hardwick, 711 F.3d at 437 (Fourth Circuit case upholding school officials’ ban on shirts with labels like “Southern Chicks,” “Dixie Angels,” and “Daddy’s Little Redneck,” and the Confederate flag icon, even though the bearer contended that hers was a “silent, peaceable display” that “even drew positive remarks from some students” and “never caused a disruption” because “school officials could reasonably forecast a disruption because of her shirts” (internal quotation marks omitted)); A.M. ex rel. McAllum v. Cash, 585 F.3d 214, 223 (5th Cir. 2009) (noting that “[o]ther circuits, applying Tinker, have held that administrators may prohibit the display of the Confederate flag in light of racial hostility and tension at their schools”); Barr v. Lafon, 538 F.3d 554, 567–68 (6th Cir. 2008) (noting the “disruptive potential of the flag in a school where racial tension is high,” and that “[o]ur holding that the school in the circumstances of this case reasonably forecast the disruptive effect of the DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. 31 Confederate flag accords with precedent in our circuit as well as our sister circuits”).8 Our role is not to second-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo celebration or the precautions put in place to avoid violence where the school reasonably forecast substantial disruption or violence. “We review . . . with deference[] schools’ decisions in connection with the safety of their students even when freedom of expression is involved,” keeping in mind that “deference does not mean abdication.” LaVine, 257 F.3d at 988, 992. As in Wynar, the question here is not whether the threat of violence was real, but only whether it was “reasonable for [the school] to proceed as though [it were].” 728 F.3d at 1071; Karp, 477 F.2d at 175 (noting that “Tinker does not demand a certainty that disruption will occur, but rather the existence of facts which might reasonably lead school officials to forecast substantial disruption”). Here, both the specific events of May 5, 2010, and the pattern of which those events were a part made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent disturbance was real. We hold that school officials, namely Rodriguez, did not act unconstitutionally, under either the First Amendment or Article I, § 2(a) of the California Constitution, in asking students to turn their shirts inside out, remove them, or leave school for the day with an excused absence in order to prevent substantial disruption or violence at school. 8 Other circuits that have considered the question have adopted the same logic. See, e.g., B.W.A. v. Farmington R-7 Sch. Dist., 554 F.3d 734, 739–40 (8th Cir. 2009); West v. Derby Unified Sch. Dist. No. 260, 206 F.3d 1358, 1365–66 (10th Cir. 2000); Scott v. Sch. Bd. of Alachua Cnty., 324 F.3d 1246, 1248 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). 32 DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST.
The students’ equal protection claim is a variation of their First Amendment challenge. Cf. U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1 (stating that “[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”). They allege that they were treated differently than students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag, and that their speech was suppressed because their viewpoint was disfavored. We note that the students had no response when asked why they chose to wear flag clothing on the day in question. The school responds that it had a viewpoint-neutral reason—student safety—for suppressing the speech in question, and that they treated “all students for whose safety they feared in the same manner.” Government action that suppresses protected speech in a discriminatory manner may violate both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 384 n.4 (1992) (noting that the Supreme Court “has occasionally fused the First Amendment into the Equal Protection Clause in this fashion, but . . . with the acknowledgment . . . that the First Amendment underlies its analysis”). Where plaintiffs allege violations of the Equal Protection Clause relating to expressive conduct, we employ “essentially the same” analysis as we would in a case alleging only content or viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment. Barr v. Lafon, 538 F.3d 554, 575 (6th Cir. 2008). In the school context, we look again to Tinker. 393 U.S. at 510; see also Barr, 538 F.3d at 576–77; Porter v. Ascension Parish Sch. Bd., 393 F.3d 608, 615 (5th Cir. 2004) (stating that Tinker “applies to school regulations directed at DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. 33 specific student viewpoints”). According to Tinker, schools are not forced to “prohibit the wearing of all symbols of political or controversial significance” in order to justify a prohibition against the wearing of a certain symbol, if such a prohibition is “necessary to avoid material and substantial interference with schoolwork or discipline.” 393 U.S. at 510–11. Schools may, under Tinker, ban certain images, for example images of the Confederate flag on clothing, even though such bans might constitute viewpoint discrimination. See, e.g., Harper v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist., 445 F.3d 1166, 1184–85 (9th Cir. 2006) (noting that “[w]hile the Confederate flag may express a particular viewpoint, ‘[i]t is not only constitutionally allowable for school officials’ to limit the expression of racially explosive views, ‘it is their duty to do so’” (alteration in original) (quoting Scott v. Sch. Bd. of Alachua Cnty., 324 F.3d 1246, 1249 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam)), judgment vacated on other grounds sub nom. Harper ex rel. Harper v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist., 549 U.S. 1262 (2007); Scott, 324 F.3d at 1248 (upholding district court order barring Confederate symbols based on “the potential disruption that the displaying of Confederate symbols would likely create”); West v. Derby Unified Sch. Dist. No. 260, 206 F.3d 1358, 1366–67 (10th Cir. 2000) (upholding ban on Confederate symbols based on a “series of racial incidents or confrontations,” including “hostile confrontations between a group of white and black students”). As the district court noted, the students offered no evidence “demonstrating that students wearing the colors of the Mexican flag were targeted for violence.” The students offered no evidence that students at a similar risk of danger were treated differently, and therefore no evidence of impermissible viewpoint discrimination. 34 DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. Because the record demonstrates that the students’ shirts “might reasonably have led school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities,” Tinker, 393 U.S. at 514, the authorities’ actions were permissible under Tinker. We reject the students’ equal protection claim.
The students further challenge the District’s dress code, which prohibits clothing that “indicate[s] gang affiliation, create[s] a safety hazard, or disrupt[s] school activities.” They seek to permanently enjoin the use of the dress code, claiming that it fails to provide objective standards by which to referee student attire, in violation of the Due Process Clause.9 We reject the students’ due process claims. The Supreme Court has “recognized that maintaining security and order in the schools requires a certain degree of flexibility in school disciplinary procedures,” and has thus specified that, “[g]iven the school’s need to be able to impose disciplinary sanctions for a wide range of unanticipated conduct disruptive of the educational process, the school disciplinary rules need not be as detailed as a criminal code . . . . ” Bethel Sch. Dist., 478 U.S. at 686 (holding that a school had not violated a student’s due process rights by disciplining him for lewd speech under a policy prohibiting “obscene” speech). 9 Although the District is not a party to this appeal, we consider the students’ dress code claims because they brought suit against Rodriguez in his official capacity. DARIANO V. MORGAN HILL UNIFIED SCH. DIST. 35 The District’s dress code is in line with others that the federal courts have held to be permissible. See, e.g., Hardwick ex rel. Hardwick v. Heyward, 711 F.3d 426, 441, 444 (4th Cir. 2013) (upholding code prohibiting “disrupt[ive]” or “offensive” clothing, including clothing that “distract[s]” or “interfere[s]”), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 201 (2013); A.M. ex rel. McAllum v. Cash, 585 F.3d 214, 224 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding code prohibiting clothing with “inappropriate symbolism”). Significantly, the dress code challenged here incorporates the standards sanctioned in Tinker: safety and disruption. See B.W.A. v. Farmington R-7 Sch. Dist., 508 F. Supp. 2d 740, 750–51 (E.D. Mo. 2007) (holding that a dress code that contains language that “tracks Tinker” poses “no real danger” of compromising the First Amendment rights of students), aff'd 554 F.3d 734 (8th Cir. 2009); see also Hardwick, 711 F.3d at 441. It would be unreasonable to require a dress code to anticipate every scenario that might pose a safety risk to students or that might substantially disrupt school activities. Dress codes are not, nor should they be, a school version of the Code of Federal Regulations. It would be equally unreasonable to hold that school officials could not, at a minimum, rely upon the language Tinker gives them. We affirm the district court’s holding that the policy is not unconstitutionally vague and does not violate the students’ right to due process. AFFIRMED.