Opinion ID: 78069
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Parental Consent Requirement

Text: The Pledge Statute states that The pledge ... shall be rendered by students.... The pledge of allegiance to the flag shall be recited at the beginning of the day in each public elementary, middle, and high school in the state. Fla. Stat. § 1003.44(1). The statute permits students an exception to this requirement, however. The exception is triggered when a student has presented a signed, written statement from his parent excusing him (the student) from participating: Upon written request by his or her parent, the student must be excused from reciting the pledge. Id. Plaintiff challenges the statute, alleging that the statute's parental-permission requirement too broadly deters free speech and is facially unconstitutional: an overbreadth challenge. An overbreadth challenge to a state statute is based on a statute's possible direct and indirect burdens on speech. The overbreadth doctrine permits the facial invalidation of laws that inhibit the exercise of First Amendment rights if the impermissible applications of the law are substantial.... Weaver v. Bonner, 309 F.3d 1312, 1318 (11th Cir.2002) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). [4] For a federal court to invalidate a state statute on overbreadth grounds is  as the Supreme Court has said  strong medicine. Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 2197, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003). To establish that the Pledge Statute is facially invalid, Plaintiff must demonstrate that the statute punishes a substantial amount of protected free speech. See id. For overbreadth invalidation, the Supreme Court has insisted that the pertinent law's application to protected speech be `substantial,' not only in an absolute sense, but also relative to the scope of the law's plainly legitimate applications. Id. Within the framework of the facial challenge, we measure the Pledge Statute against the appropriate First Amendment standard. As the Supreme Court in West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette wrote, freedoms of speech ... are susceptible of restriction only to prevent grave and immediate danger to interests which the state may lawfully protect. 319 U.S. 624, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1186, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943). Although the Court in Barnette ruled that the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge violated the Constitution, the Court noted that the refusal of [plaintiffs] to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so.... The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. Id. at 1187, 1181. We see the statute before us now as largely a parental-rights statute. As such, this case is different from Barnette. Although the statute here generally requires students to recite the Pledge, the statute also requires students to be notified that they might be excused from reciting the Pledge. The statute then spells out how a student may be excused, that is, by getting his parent's consent. Most important, the statute ultimately leaves it to the parent whether a schoolchild will pledge or not. Here, unlike in Barnette and in the cases cited by Plaintiff, the refusal of students to participate in the Pledge  unless their parents consent  hinders their parents' fundamental right to control their children's upbringing. [5] The rights of students and the rights of parents  two different sets of persons whose opinions can often clash  are the subject of a legislative balance in the statute before us. The State, in restricting the student's freedom of speech, advances the protection of the constitutional rights of parents: an interest which the State may lawfully protect. See, e.g., Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 2267, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997) ([T]he `liberty' specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes the right[ ] ... to direct the education and upbringing of one's children....). As the State pointed out before the district court and before us, the statute is neutral on the Pledge in the statute's deference to a parent's expressed wishes. [6] Should a parent request that his child not recite the Pledge  even where the child wishes to recite  the statute provides that the school must excuse the student. Fla. Stat. § 1003.44(1) (Upon written request by his or her parent, the student must be excused from reciting the pledge.). Likewise, the school will protect the interests of a parent who refuses to send in a written request that his child be excused. Although we accept that the government ordinarily may not compel students to participate in the Pledge, e.g., Barnette, 63 S.Ct. at 1187, we also recognize that a parent's right to interfere with the wishes of his child is stronger than a public school official's right to interfere on behalf of the school's own interest. See Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 2391-92, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995) (discussing public school official's more limited role vis-à-vis parents with respect to infringing on a student's fundamental rights). And this Court and others have routinely acknowledged parents as having the principal role in guiding how their children will be educated on civic values. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 1541, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (refusing to enforce a compulsory education requirement beyond the eighth grade where doing so would infringe upon the free exercise of the Amish religion and intrude on the fundamental interest of parents ... to guide the religious future and education of their children); Arnold v. Bd. of Educ. of Escambia County, 880 F.2d 305, 313 (11th Cir.1989) (Within the constitutionally protected realm rests the parental freedom to inculcate one's children with values and standards which the parents deem desirable.). We conclude that the State's interest in recognizing and protecting the rights of parents on some educational issues is sufficient to justify the restriction of some students' freedom of speech. [7] Even if the balance of parental, student, and school rights might favor the rights of a mature high school student in a specific instance, Plaintiff has not persuaded us that the balance favors students in a substantial number of instances  particularly those instances involving elementary and middle school students  relative to the total number of students covered by the statute. See, e.g., Muller by Muller v. Jefferson Lighthouse Sch., 98 F.3d 1530, 1538 (7th Cir.1996) (Age is a critical factor in student speech cases.); see also Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2918, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973) ([T]he overbreadth of a statute must not only be real, but substantial as well, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep.). We therefore decline to validate Plaintiff's facial challenge. To the degree that the district court's judgment invalidates the written request by ... parent requirement of the Pledge Statute, the judgment is reversed. We stress that we decide and hint at nothing about the Pledge Statute's constitutionality as applied to a specific student or a specific division of students. AFFIRMED IN PART and REVERSED IN PART.