Opinion ID: 399338
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 2 The Lottery is a short story by American author Shirley Jackson in which the citizens of a small town randomly select one person to be stoned to death each year. Since 1972, the curriculum of Independent School District No. 831, Forest Lake, Minnesota, has included the Encyclopedia Brittanica Educational Corporation's film version of The Lottery, and its accompanying trailer film which discusses the story and its themes. 3 During the 1977-1978 school year, a group of parents and other citizens became concerned about the use of the films in American literature courses taught in the senior high school, and sought to have them removed from the District's curriculum. The citizens' objections focused on the alleged violence in the films and their purported impact on the religious and family values of students. 4 After the citizens had pursued their complaints through the appropriate procedures for review and selection of instructional materials, the school board acceded to their demands and voted to remove the films from the District's curriculum. This action was then commenced in United States District Court for the District of Minnesota by three students enrolled in the junior and senior high schools operated by District No. 831. They sought to compel District No. 831 to reinstate the film version of The Lottery and its trailer film to the high school curriculum. 5 After a hearing, the district court found that the board's objections to the films had religious overtones and that the films had been banned because of their ideological content. It held the school board's decision violated the First Amendment and ordered the films reinstated to their prior place in the curriculum. We affirm. Under the circumstances presented here, the First Amendment protects the right of the Forest Lake students not to have these films removed from the high school classrooms. The school board cannot constitutionally ban the films because a majority of its members object to the films' religious and ideological content and wish to prevent the ideas contained in the material from being expressed in the school. 6