Ahern v. BOARD OF ED. OF SCH. DIST. OF GRAND ISLAND

• Decision Date: 20 April 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 1618 L.
• Citation: 327 F. Supp. 1391
• Parties: Frances AHERN, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF GRAND ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Nebraska

327 F. Supp. 1391

Frances AHERN, Plaintiff, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF GRAND ISLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 1618 L.

United States District Court, D. Nebraska.

April 20, 1971.

Wallace Rudolph, Lincoln, Neb., for plaintiff.

Flavel Wright, Lincoln, Neb., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

URBOM, District Judge.

The plaintiff was a non-tenured instructor at a public school and was discharged before expiration of her contract period. Seeking pecuniary damages and injunctive relief, she filed in this court a complaint framed within the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, naming as defendants the Board of Education, the individual board members, the superintendent of schools, the assistant superintendent of schools, who was also secretary of the board, and the principal of the high school. Trial has been concluded and extensive briefs have been submitted.

Issues raised by the complaint relate to deprivation of the plaintiff's rights of free speech, due process, and right to teach under the First, Fifth and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Frances Ahern was employed as a public schoolteacher by the School District of Grand Island, Nebraska, from September, 1966, until her discharge on March 31, 1969. The contract of employment for the year 1968-1969 was identical to the contract executed March 15, 1969, for the year 1969-1970,¹ except that Miss Ahern was to receive an increase in salary for the 1969-1970 term.

In the summer of 1968 Miss Ahern attended the N.D.E.A. Civic Institute, titled "American Liberties and Social Change," at the Center for Research and Education in American Liberties, Teachers College, Columbia University. The institute challenged the efficacy of the traditional authoritarian teaching approach in teaching about American liberties. The institute sought to provide the participants with a new approach to teaching, the inquiry method, which shifted to the students many decisions previously made unilaterally by the teacher, including the specific subject for daily discussion, the course material to be used, and rules of in-class behavior.

During the second semester of the 1968-1969 school year Miss Ahern was assigned to teach two classes of Economics and two classes of Consumer Economics and she was responsible for a study hall. There is some dispute as to whether the course in Consumer Economics was more properly denominated by Miss Ahern Consumer Politics and as to what the content of the course was supposed to be. The course was designed to accommodate high school seniors who ranked in the lower 20 per cent of their class. It is clear that the content of the course was expanded by Miss Ahern from merely economic analysis to politics and social change.

Miss Ahern's increased sensitivity to student rights was manifested during her first semester course of Contemporary Government. Permission was requested and obtained from Dr. Eugene Miller, the principal, to use the school system as the government to be studied as a model. As a part of the Contemporary Government course, Miss Ahern's students under her guidance developed a statement of "student rights and responsibilities."

The first sign that the school administrators seriously questioned Miss Ahern's teaching method was on February 14, 1969, at a meeting with the principal and assistant principal. However, it was the week of March 10, 1969, and the ensuing events which culminated in the decision by the principal on March 21, 1969, to suspend Miss Ahern and the decision by the school board on March 31, 1969, to terminate her contracts.

During the week of March 10 Miss Ahern with the permission of the high school authorities attended a special seminar in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A substitute teacher was assigned to conduct Miss Ahern's classes. On March 17 Miss Ahern returned from the seminar and at the second and third period classes, which were both Consumer Economics or Consumer Politics classes, the students related to Miss Ahern that the substitute teacher had not permitted them to discuss in small groups, required them to sit in straight rows, changed the study plans, told them that the classroom was no longer a playroom, gave one student a low grade because she could not read his writing, and conducted the classes generally in a manner not in keeping with Miss Ahern's usual method. The students, at least in the third period Consumer Politics class, said that by the end of the substitute teacher's week of teaching the students were antagonistic and refused to give the substitute their names and that at the third period Consumer Politics class on Friday, March 14, the substitute had seized a boy by the hair and had slapped him three times across the face, knocking off his glasses, whereupon the boy left the room. On hearing this report Miss Ahern in the classroom said with reference to the substitute teacher, "That bitch," because she was terribly angry, and also said, "I hope that if this happens again * * * all of you will walk out."

At the sixth period Economics class, consisting of students not present at the slapping incident, on Monday, March 17, Miss Ahern had the slapping incident role-played and discussed. Using the incident as a current issue to which the students could relate in the experiencing of involvement in the study of democratic processes, Miss Ahern encouraged the focusing of all her classes' attention on the matter of devising a proposal for a school regulation regarding corporal punishment. She assisted her students in drafting a resolution, which stated:

"We think teachers should have authority.

"But the student has a right as a person not to be threatened with or to be subjected to physical coercion. The student has a right as a person to be free from verbal abuse intended to humiliate him, to cut him down.

"Teachers have the right as persons not to be threatened with or to be subjected to physical coercion. They have the right to be free from verbal abuse intended to humiliate them."

The plan developed by Miss Ahern and her students was to present the statement to the high school student council which was scheduled to meet on Wednesday, March 19. A prior commitment by the council caused its Wednesday meeting to be cancelled and no further attempt was made by Miss Ahern or her students to submit the statement to the council before her suspension. On March 19 Miss Ahern was called to Dr. Miller's office for a meeting, which was attended by Dr. Miller; the assistant principal, James Shehein; the department chairman, Jack Richards; and Miss Ahern. At the meeting Dr. Miller, among other things, upbraided her for calling a substitute teacher a "bitch" in front of her class, read to her portions of her teaching contract², advised her not to sign a contract for the next year because her philosophy did not "fit in this school," told her to change her philosophy or he would see that she was removed from the classroom, told her that disciplinary action on a substitute or regular teacher was an administration function and not that of a teacher or students; told her that her main function was to teach economics during class time and not the discussing of teachers, and directed her to return to her class, to teach as she had during the first two years, not to discuss with any of her classes the slapping incident or any teacher, and to get her classes and her study hall under control by March 24 or she would be relieved of her classroom duties for the balance of the year.

The principal's admonitions were deliberately ignored by the plaintiff because she thought that adhering to them would have threatened her rapport with her students and because she believed that the principal could not dictate to her the philosophy or method of teaching to be used in the classroom. The day following, which was Thursday, March 20, at least one entire class session—the sixth period class in Economics—was consumed in a discussion of the slapping incident, the proposed resolution or statement, the refusal of Dr. Miller to meet with the students, and the advisability of the students' gathering in a substantial number at 8:10 the next morning before the 8:15 classes.³ Lee Perkins, an assistant principal, attended the class session and thereafter reported to Dr. Miller that Miss Ahern's class was discussing the subjects noted above and was not discussing economics. Although Miss Ahern's classes in Consumer Politics or Consumer Economics had previously taken the posture, with the knowledge of Jack Richards, the head of the department, of a course of study of democratic methods of problem-solving, the Economics classes were framed by Miss Ahern and approved by the administration as a course in "the development, operation, and problems of a market economy. * * * Economics is concerned with the way societies go about allocating scarce resources among competing wants."⁴

Also on March 20 Miss Ahern sent from her third period Consumer Politics class a copy of the resolution prepared by her and her students and a note stating:

"Dr. Miller, Third Period Consumer Politics class would like to discuss with you the subject raised in this statement today in class. Frances Ahern."⁵

Dr. Miller ignored the request. Miss Ahern then invited the principal by calling him from the classroom on the classroom telephone to speak to the class about the resolution on corporal punishment. Dr. Miller through his secretary again declined to meet with Miss Ahern and her students in the classroom, but offered to meet with students at his office.

On Friday morning, March 21, at 8:00 o'clock, Miss Ahern appeared by request at the principal's office and was told by Dr. Miller:

"Miss Ahern, I have some statements to make. I ask you to listen and then you will be given an opportunity to speak. Since our meeting on Wednesday morning, you have failed to return to your

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