Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd.
| Decision Date | 15 March 2012 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 1:11CV00056–NBB–DAS. |
| Citation | 859 F.Supp.2d 834 |
| Parties | Taylor BELL and Dora Bell, Individually and as Mother of Taylor Bell, Plaintiffs, v. ITAWAMBA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Teresa McNeece, Superintendent of Education for Itawamba County, Individually and in Her Official Capacity, and Trae Wiygul, Principal of Itawamba Agricultural High School Individually and in His Official Capacity, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Scott Winston Colom, Colom Law Firm, LLC, Wilbur O. Colom, Colom & Colom, Columbus, MS, for Plaintiffs.
Benjamin E. Griffith, Beebe Saffold Garrard, Michael S. Carr, Griffith & Griffith, Cleveland, MS, Michele Horn Floyd, Michele H. Floyd, Attorney, Fulton, MS, for Defendants.
These matters come before the court upon the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. After due consideration of the motions and the responses filed thereto, the court is prepared to rule.
In August 2001, while a senior at Itawamba Agricultural School, Taylor Bell composed, sang, and recorded a rap song which he published for over 1,300 “friends” on Facebook.com and for an unlimited audience on YouTube.com. In clearly vulgar language, the rap song criticizes two coaches at school—Coach Wildmon and Coach Rainey—by alleging that both of them had improper contact with female students. The last two verses include the phrases: (1) “looking down girls' shirts/drool running down your mouth/messing with wrong one/going to get a pistol down your mouth” and (2) “middle fingers up if you can't stand that nigga/middle fingers up if you want to cap that nigga.” 1
After the school became aware of the song, Taylor Bell was taken out of class on January 7, 2011 and met with Principal Trae Wiygul, District Superintendent Teresa McNeese, and the school board attorney who accused him of making threats and false allegations. Taylor Bell denied making threats but confirmed that the allegations of improper contact with female students were true. After the meeting, Principal Wiygul drove Taylor Bell to a friend's house rather than allowing him to attend his remaining classes for the day.
The school cancelled classes until Friday, January 14, 2011 due to inclement weather. On that Friday Mr. Bell returned to school. After his last class that day, the assistant principal's office called for Taylor Bell and told him he would be suspended indefinitely pending a hearing.
The Disciplinary Committee of the Itawamba County School Board held a hearing on January 26, 2011 after providing notice to Taylor Bell and his mother Dora Bell via letter. Taylor Bell attended the hearing with his mother and his own counsel. The Committee concluded that Taylor's conduct of writing and recording the song and publishing the song on Facebook.com and YouTube.com constituted “harassment and intimidation of teachers and possible threats against teachers.” The Committee decided to suspend Taylor Bell for seven days and to transfer him to an alternative school for the five weeks remaining of the nine-week school period.
On February 7, 2011 the Itawamba County School Board held a hearing on Taylor Bell's appeal of the Disciplinary Committee's findings and punishment. The school board upheld the punishment and affirmed that Taylor Bell “threatened, harassed, and intimidated school employees” with the publication of his song.
One week later on February 14, 2011 Dora Bell filed her Complaint on behalf of her son Taylor Bell and herself. Count 1 alleges that Taylor Bell's punishment violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Count 2 alleges that his punishment violated Dora Bell's parenting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause. Count 3 alleges that Taylor Bell's speech was entitled to heightened protection as speech on a matter of public concern. Count 4 alleges that Taylor's punishment for exercising his right to free speech violated Mississippi law.
On March 2, 2011 the plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to require the Itawamba School Board to allow Taylor Bell to return from the alternative school before the required five week period expired pursuant to his punishment. This court held a hearing on March 10, 2011. On March 14, 2011 the court entered an Order denying the motion for preliminary injunction as moot since the plaintiff's time in alternative school was set to expire on March 11, 2011—one day after the hearing.
By Order of May 9, 2011 the court instructed the parties to file cross motions for summary judgment within 90 days. The motions for summary judgment have been fully briefed since August 2011. Neither party argued Count 3 as a separate count, but rather as part and parcel to the free speech claim. Furthermore, since the briefs do not discuss the alleged violation of Mississippi laws protecting free speech, the court considers Count 4 as abandoned. Accordingly, at issue are Counts 1 and 2.
The Order of May 9, 2011 also concluded that: “Having conducted a case management conference and having discussed the case with the parties, it appears there are no factual issues and that this case should be resolved by summary judgment.” The issues remaining are matters of law which will be resolved by applying the law to the undisputed facts.
Summary judgment should be entered only if “[t]here is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c) (emphasis added). The primary focus for the court in ruling upon a motion for summary judgment is usually whether there is at least one issue of material fact warranting a trial. In this matter, however, the parties have agreed that there are no remaining issues of fact. Thus, it falls upon the court to determine which party is entitled to judgment “as a matter law.”
Students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). However, the constitutional rights of students in public school “are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.” Bethel Sch. Dist. N. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 682, 106 S.Ct. 3159, 92 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986). Though free speech rights are available to teachers and students in public schools, such rights must be “applied in light of the special circumstances of the school environment.” Tinker, 393 U.S. at 506, 89 S.Ct. 733.
Pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Tinker, “conduct by a student, in class or out of it which for any reason ... 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.” Tinker, 393 U.S. at 506, 89 S.Ct. 733 (emphasis added).
The Fifth Circuit in Porter v. Ascension Parish School Board, 393 F.3d 608 (5th Cir.2004) held that a student's sketch depicting a violent siege at school could not be regulated by the school because it was drawn at home and not on campus, kept in his closet for two years, and only made it to school unintentionally when his younger brother took it to school. However, the Court did not rule in Porter that off-campus speech by students cannot be regulated by the school. Rather, the Court specifically observed that its analysis was not in conflict with other courts having applied Tinker to off-campus speech because “the fact that Adam's drawing was composed off-campus and remained off-campus for two years until it was unintentionally taken to school by his younger brother takes the present case outside the scope of these precedents.” Porter, 393 F.3d at 615 n. 22.
In any event, as emphasized above, the U.S. Supreme Court in Tinker specifically ruled that off-campus conduct causing materialor substantial disruption at school can be regulated by the school. The Fifth Circuit in Porter appears to have added a requirement that the speech be intended to reach school. In this case, Taylor Bell clearly intended to publish to the public the content of the song as evidenced by his posting of the song on Facebook.com with at least 1,300 “friends,” many of whom were fellow students, and to an unlimited, world-wide audience on YouTube.com. Accordingly, the Tinker standard applies to Taylor Bell's song without regard to whether it was written, produced, and published outside of school.
Importantly, courts have held that the Tinker material or substantial disruption standard can also apply to allow regulation of student speech when the disruption is reasonably foreseeable.
In Wisniewski v. Board of Education of Weedsport Central School District, 494 F.3d 34 (2d Cir.2007), a student was suspended after instant messaging on the internet at home a picture displaying a drawing of a pistol firing a bullet at a person's head, above which were dots of blood, and beneath was the word “kill” followed by the name of the student's English teacher. The student was not on school property and only sent the images to his friends.
The Second Circuit used the Tinker substantial disruption standard rather than the “true threat” standard enunciated in Watts2, concluding that school officials had more authority over students' speech than the government had over the adult plaintiff in Watts.Wisniewski, 494 F.3d at 38.
The Second Circuit in Wisniewski concluded:
We are in agreement ... that, on the undisputed facts, it was reasonably foreseeable that the IM icon would come to the attention of school authorities and the teacher whom the icon depicted being shot. The potentially threatening content of the icon and the extensive distribution of it, which encompassed 15 recipients, including some of Aaron's classmates, during a three-week...
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Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd.
...relative of one of the female students might eventually react violently upon learning that the coaches were harassing their children—not that Bell would react violently.28 Bell explained that he uploaded the remastered version of the song to YouTube because he wanted people to “clearly unde......
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Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd.
...Wiygul, acting in their official capacities (the school board), acted reasonably as a matter of law. Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd., 859 F.Supp.2d 834 (N.D.Miss.2012).Primarily at issue is whether, consistent with the requirements of the First Amendment, off-campus speech directed intentio......
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Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd.
...the school's work and discipline and that it was “reasonably [774 F.3d 291] foreseeable” that the song would cause such a disruption. 859 F.Supp.2d 834, 840 (N.D.Miss.2012). We reverse the district court's application of Tinker as legally incorrect, and conclude that Tinker could not afford......
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Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd., 12-60264
...Wiygul, acting in their official capacities (the school board), acted reasonably as a matter of law. Bell v. Itawamba Cnty. Sch. Bd., 859 F. Supp. 2d 834 (N.D. Miss. 2012). Primarily at issue is whether, consistent with the requirements of the First Amendment, off-campus speech directed int......