Court Opinion

ID: 9467442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:48:58.190357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:21.005325
License: Public Domain

SIFTON, District Judge
(dissenting):
The distinctions perceived by Judge Newman between this case and Pico v. Board of Education, 638 F.2d 404 (2d Cir.), decided today, seem to me without basis. The same “constitutionally protected right of access on school property to material that, which ... is fairly characterized as vulgar and indecent” exists in this case as exists in Pico. That is, access to such material should not be denied to plaintiffs in a fashion or based on criteria of such indefiniteness and ambiguity as to strike not at the vulgarities and indecencies in the books, but rather at the ideas the books express. As Judge Newman aptly states in his concurring opinion in Pico, what is significant is whether “the school has used its public pow*443er to perform an act clearly indicating that the views represented by the forbidden book are unacceptable.” Pico v. Board of Education, supra, 638 F.2d at 404 (Newman, C. J., concurring). In my opinion, plaintiffs, in this case, should be given an opportunity through discovery and a trial to prove that this is just what has been done by the Vergennes Union High School Board of Directors. Plaintiffs have, in other words, in my view, alleged in their pleading a prima facie case of the type described in Pico.
Plaintiffs refer in their complaint to a statement of policy and procedure recently established by defendants for operating and maintaining the Vergennes Union High School library and, specifically, for dealing with decisions concerning the contents of the library of the sort here at issue. Indeed, the statement of policy and procedure is annexed as an exhibit to the complaint. The complaint alleges that this statement of policy and procedure was violated by defendants’ action; and, in their brief to this Court, plaintiffs state what they would certainly be entitled to prove under the complaint’s allegations-that defendants’ actions “were undertaken without even a semblance or pretense of following either the substantive, objective criteria or the expressly articulated procedure set forth in the library policy adopted by them... . ” Specifically, plaintiffs seek an opportunity to prove that defendants ignored the established objective criteria for selection of library materials, disregarded a five-step procedure for the selection of library materials, and by-passed the personnel whose expertise the same defendants had recently determined should be consulted before school book removal could be accomplished. While Judge Coffrin states in his opinion below that defendants employed the procedures set forth in the statement of policy to remove two books from the library, this factual finding by the district judge is completely in conflict with the allegations of the complaint and, accordingly, not the type of decision appropriately made, as here, on a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The sort of substantive and procedural irregularity alleged in the complaint does not, in my view, irrevocably condemn defendants’ conduct; I agree with Judge Newman that there is no due process argument here. However, it seems to me that detailed allegations of this sort of substantive and procedural irregularity do, for the reasons indicated in my opinion in Pico, establish a prima facie case deserving of answer, discovery and trial. Plaintiffs should, in other words, be entitled to explore whether the reasons for these irregularities were, as they also allege, that the school board wanted the two books out of the library because of improper ideas they expressed, regardless of what might have been shown concerning the reasons for retaining the books in the library, had the prescribed procedures and criteria been followed. I would reverse and remand for discovery and trial.