M.C. Through Chudley v. Shawnee Mission Unified Sch. Dist. No. 512
| Decision Date | 28 January 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 18-2283-JAR-KGG |
| Citation | 363 F.Supp.3d 1182 |
| Parties | M.C. THROUGH Her Mother and Next Friend Erin CHUDLEY; S.W. Through Her Mother and Next Friend Helen Whisler; and G.A. Through Her Mother and Next Friend Deborah Altenhofen, Plaintiffs, v. SHAWNEE MISSION UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 512 (a/k/a The "Shawnee Mission School District" ) and Kenneth Southwick, in His Individual and Official Capacity as Interim Superintendent of Shawnee Mission School District, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Kansas |
J. Eric Weslander, Stevens & Brand, LLP, Lawrence, KS, Lauren Bonds, Pro Hac Vice, American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, Overland Park, KS, Zal Kotval Shroff, ACLU Foundation of Kansas, Wichita, KS, for Plaintiffs.
Duane A. Martin, I.J. Drew Marriott, Ryan S. VanFleet, EdCounsel, LLC, Independence, MO, for Defendants.
Plaintiffs, who are all minor students in the Shawnee Mission School District ("SMSD" or "the District"), bring this action by and through their next friends under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Kansas Student Publications Act, for claims arising out of the District's conduct during the April 20, 2018 national school walkout to protest gun violence. Before the Court is Defendants SMSD and Kenneth Southwick's Joint Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Complaint (Doc. 8). The motion is fully briefed and the Court is prepared to rule. As described more fully below, the motion is granted as to Defendant Southwick on the § 1983 claims alleged in Count I. The motion is denied as to Defendant SMSD on Count II. Defendants' motion to dismiss Count III is also denied.
To survive a motion to dismiss brought under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a complaint must contain factual allegations that, assumed to be true, "raise a right to relief above the speculative level" and must include "enough facts to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face."1 Under this standard, "the complaint must give the court reason to believe that this plaintiff has a reasonable likelihood of mustering factual support for these claims."2 The plausibility standard does not require a showing of probability that "a defendant has acted unlawfully," but requires more than "a sheer possibility."3 "[M]ere ‘labels and conclusions,’ and ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action’ will not suffice; a plaintiff must offer specific factual allegations to support each claim."4 Finally, the court must accept the nonmoving party's factual allegations as true and may not dismiss on the ground that it appears unlikely the allegations can be proven.5
The Supreme Court has explained the analysis as a two-step process. For purposes of a motion to dismiss, the court "must take all the factual allegations in the complaint as true, [but is] ‘not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.’ "6 Thus, the court must first determine if the allegations are factual and entitled to an assumption of truth, or merely legal conclusions that are not entitled to an assumption of truth.7 Second, the court must determine whether the factual allegations, when assumed true, "plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief."8 "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged."9
The following facts are alleged in the Complaint and assumed to be true for the purposes of deciding this motion.
Students across the country, including the named Plaintiffs in this action and their fellow students, organized a national walkout on April 20, 2018, to advocate for reforms to reduce gun violence in the wake of the tragic Parkland High School shootings in Florida. Students selected the date of the walkout to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School Massacre; and the walkout was specifically organized for the purpose of demanding reforms intended to reduce the prevalence of gun deaths and school shootings in the United States. Student organizers at various SMSD sites informed administrators in advance of the protests that they intended to participate as part of the national walkout. Defendants informed parents that students would be permitted to participate in the walkouts without risking discipline. However, Defendants made clear to parents and students that the walkouts were student-led and optional, and that the District was not sponsoring the event.
SMSD issued a directive to all building administrators, encouraging and directing them to prohibit students from discussing guns, gun control, and school shootings—the central topics of the planned protests—during the walkouts. Specifically, according to SMSD spokesperson Shawna Samuel, the District "encouraged the students to keep the topic to school safety," and steered students away from discussing guns.10 SMSD adopted these guidelines, according to Samuel's statements, because "[a]s a public institution, we cannot take a stand one way or the other on Second Amendment rights."11
At Hocker Grove Middle School ("Hocker Grove"), assistant principal Alisha Gripp began to interfere with students' speeches after the second speaker cited a statistic that there had been nineteen school shootings in the previous year, and stated that "we would have more shooters who were women, queer, transgender, and people of color if bullying caused school shootings."12 Gripp informed students, 13 Gripp confiscated the written remarks of another scheduled speaker because they mentioned gun control.
Plaintiff M.C. is an eighth-grade student enrolled in Hocker Grove who helped organize the walkout there. Defendants informed Hocker Grove students such as M.C. and their parents that students would not be disciplined if they participated in the walkout. M.C. was the third scheduled speaker. She spoke two lines of her prepared speech, stating that 14 before an administrator interrupted M.C. and ordered her to step down from the speaking platform. She complied without protest. Gripp then abruptly declared an end to the event. Because nine minutes remained in the planned seventeen-minute event, approximately fifty students remained outside with the intention of continuing the planned program. Gripp then directed the remaining students to disperse, pushing several students toward the school door.
A number of Hocker Grove students were then told that they had either been suspended or had detention for participating in the walkout, including M.C., who was sent home for "being the most disruptive child in the school."15 Students returning to class were not stopped from exercising speech rights unrelated to the walkout, including loudly yelling, "It's Hitler's birthday today," and "Free Meek Mill!"16 According to witnesses, no administrator or teacher tried to censor these students' statements, or told them to return to class.
At Shawnee Mission North High School ("SMN"), students were permitted to hold a walkout program from 10:00 to 10:17 a.m. at a designated location on school grounds. Several days before the protests, however, administrators told students that they could not mention shootings or gun violence. The students who spoke during the school-permitted walkout time apparently complied with this request. More than 100 students, however, remained outside the school after the end of the school-permitted program to discuss the subjects the school would not allow them to speak about during the approved walkout: mass shootings and gun-policy reforms.
Administrators generally permitted students to remain outside during the "unsanctioned" event, except for student journalists. At the beginning of the unsanctioned walkout program, SMN Assistant Principal Brock Wenciker expressly directed journalism students to return to the building. Plaintiff S.W. is a junior enrolled at SMN. In her capacity as a student journalist she was attempting to document the protests for the school when Wenciker approached her and ordered her to hand over the camera she was using. The camera belongs to the District but was checked out to S.W. for the year to use in her role as a student journalist. Wenciker informed S.W. he believed he could rightfully confiscate the camera because it was school property. Wenciker confiscated at least one other student's camera during the unsanctioned protest as well.
During the unsanctioned program, students expressed a diversity of views and proposals on how to reduce gun violence. Some students, for example, advocated for a ban on assault rifles while others argued that schools should arm teachers and school staff. S.W. stayed after school to get the camera back, at which point Wenciker returned it to her without explanation.
Plaintiff G.A. is a junior enrolled at SMN. G.A. attended the SMN walkout event primarily as a protestor but also is a student journalist who works for the school newspaper, The Mission. G.A. was denied the opportunity to hear the messages that students originally intended to express at the walkout. On April 23, 2018, G.A. spoke to the SMSD board and complained about the censorship activities that took place at her school. During this meeting, Defendant Kenneth Southwick, the interim Superintendent at that time, issued a "personal apology" for unspecified actions, and pledged to fully review the incidents.
On April 26, 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU"), on behalf of several named Plaintiffs in this action, sent the District a letter demanding that it commit to a proposed corrective action for each impacted student by Thursday, May 3, 2018. The district issued another apology...
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...designed to protect a specific group of people rather than to protect the general public." M.C. Chumley v. Shawnee Mission United School District NO. 512, 363 F.Supp.3d 1182, 1210 (D. Kan. 2019) (citation omitted). Second, the court must "review the legislative history to determine whether ......
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From the Kba Media-bar Chair
...right of action for students whose work is censored in violation of the Act. See M.C. v. Shawnee Mission Unified School Dist. No. 512, 363 F. Supp. 3d 1182 (D. Kan. 2019). [11] K.S.A. 60-5320. [12] 47 U.S.C. § 230. --------- ...