Pyle By and Through Pyle v. SO. HADLEY SCHOOL COM., Civ. A. No. 93-30102-MAP.

• Decision Date: 26 August 1994
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 93-30102-MAP.
• Citation: 861 F. Supp. 157
• Parties: Jeffrey J. PYLE and Jonathan H. Pyle, By and Through his father and next friend, Christopher H. PYLE, Plaintiffs, v. The SOUTH HADLEY SCHOOL COMMITTEE, Charles F. Kimball, Individually and in his capacity as Interim Superintendent of South Hadley High School, Paul Raymond, Individually and in his capacity as Interim Principal of South Hadley High School, and Donna Theroux-Cole, Steven M. Marantz, Chairman, Robert L. Gouin, Mary Jo Moore, Kevin Taugher, Individually, and in their capacity as Members of the South Hadley School Committee, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

861 F. Supp. 157

Jeffrey J. PYLE and Jonathan H. Pyle, By and Through his father and next friend, Christopher H. PYLE, Plaintiffs, v. The SOUTH HADLEY SCHOOL COMMITTEE, Charles F. Kimball, Individually and in his capacity as Interim Superintendent of South Hadley High School, Paul Raymond, Individually and in his capacity as Interim Principal of South Hadley High School, and Donna Theroux-Cole, Steven M. Marantz, Chairman, Robert L. Gouin, Mary Jo Moore, Kevin Taugher, Individually, and in their capacity as Members of the South Hadley School Committee, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 93-30102-MAP.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

August 26, 1994.

John Reinstein, Civ. Liberties Union of Mass., Boston, MA, William Newman, Civil Liberties Union, Northampton, MA, Sarah Wunsch, Mass. Civil Liberties Union Fdn., Boston, MA, for plaintiffs.

Raymond R. Randall, Ryan, Boudreau, Randall & Kirkpatrick, South Hadley, MA, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

PONSOR, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This case is a reminder that it is easy to assume a tempest in a teapot is trivial, unless you happen to be in the teapot.

The tumult here arose when two students at South Hadley High School wore T-shirts — one reading "See Dick Drink. See Dick Drive. See Dick Die. Don't be a Dick" and the other reading "Coed Naked Band: Do It To the Rhythm" — that teachers, school administrators and, ultimately, the town's school committee decided were unacceptable school dress.

The students then sued the superintendent and school board, claiming that the school's dress code generally, and its application to the two T-shirts specifically, violated their First Amendment rights. This court denied the students' motion for preliminary injunction, which sought an immediate order barring the school's prohibition of the particular T-shirts. A four-day bench trial followed regarding the shirts and two provisions of the dress code, one addressing vulgarity and the other harassment.

The court's recitation of facts and discussion of the law below is lengthy, but its essence can be quickly summarized.

The First Amendment limits minimally, if at all, the discretion of secondary school officials to restrict so called "vulgar" speech — including speech containing sexual innuendo, however lukewarm by some standards. The sexual witticism at issue in this case is almost identical in tone to the student's remarks reported in Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 106 S.Ct. 3159, 92 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986). In that case the Supreme Court affirmed the school's power to curb, and even discipline, the speaker. Similarly here, the school's exercise of its authority to limit the sexual double entendre on these T-shirts, even where there was no immediate prospect of disruption, did not run afoul of the First Amendment.

Plaintiffs argue that, even if school administrators have the hypothetical power to limit "vulgar" speech, this court must itself weigh the slogans on its own scale of offensiveness and conclude that these particular T-shirts simply were not vulgar. The question then becomes, who decides what is "vulgar"? The answer in most cases is easy: assuming general reasonableness, the citizens of the community, through their elected representatives on the school board and the school administrators appointed by them, make the decision. On questions of coarseness or ribaldry in school, federal courts do not decide how far is too far.

This is because people will always differ on the level of crudity required before a school administrator should react. The T-shirts in question here may strike people variously as humorous, innocuous, stupid or indecent. In assessing the acceptability of various forms of vulgar expression in a secondary school, however, the limits are to be debated and decided within the community; the rules may even vary from one school district to another as the diversity of culture dictates. The administrators here acted within reason, and the court's inquiry need go no further. Therefore, the court will deny the motion for injunctive relief directed at the two T-shirts themselves and at that portion of the dress code forbidding clothing that is "obscene, profane, lewd or vulgar."¹

As regards the second aspect of the dress code — the ban on clothing that "harasses, threatens, intimidates or demeans" certain individuals or groups — the plaintiffs' motion will be allowed. Enforcement of this portion of the code will be enjoined, except in circumstances where the clothing in question also creates a substantial risk of a material and substantial disruption to the daily operations of the school described in the Supreme Court's decision in Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, 509, 89 S.Ct. 733, 738, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). Any other ruling would permit school officials to circumscribe improperly the expression of opinion on controversial issues, even where that expression contained no vulgarity and offered no threat to the orderly performance of the school's educational mission.

The First Amendment does not permit official repression or homogenization of ideas, even odious ideas, and even when the expression of these ideas may result in hurt feelings or a sense of being harassed. A school committee may not ban speech other than that reflecting the dominant or most comforting ethos. The "harassment" provision at issue here, while it obviously has laudable goals, gives school personnel precisely that excessive authority.

Of course, as this court has emphasized, school officials have the authority to limit expression that "would substantially interfere with the work of the school or impinge upon the rights of other students." Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 509, 89 S.Ct. 733, 738, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). But, where it is not disruptive or vulgar, a student's personal expression may not be censored on the basis of its content.

II. FACTS

A. The Parties

Plaintiff Jeffrey Pyle ("Jeffrey"), is now an eighteen-year-old freshman at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1993, he was a student at South Hadley High School and participated in the band and the drama club. Jeffrey's father, Christopher Pyle, a professor of constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College, is also a plaintiff, bringing this action on behalf of his minor son Jonathan, a sixteen-year-old sophomore still attending the high school. It is undisputed that both Jeffrey and Jonathan have achieved an excellent record, both academically and with respect to their extracurricular activities. They have been good students and good citizens of their school.

Defendants are: the South Hadley School Committee and its individual members; Charles Kimball, individually and in his capacity as Interim Superintendent of the South Hadley High School; and Paul Raymond, interim principal of the high school.

South Hadley is a town of approximately 16,000 inhabitants, located at the foot of the Holyoke Mountain range in Western Massachusetts. The area is rich in both history and culture. South Hadley has a strong commitment to the education of the town's students and is influenced, in part, by the presence of Mount Holyoke College as well as many of the excellent academic institutions nearby. The first public school in South Hadley was built in 1754. In 1870 the high school held a graduation for its first class — of two students. By 1900 the population of South Hadley had increased to approximately 4,500 and in 1904 the first woman school committee member, Mary Brainard, a retired high school teacher, was elected. In 1907, the high school graduated a "large" class of 16 students. Over the years, South Hadley has continued to grow, and the location of the high school has changed several times due to the demand for more space. Presently, approximately 785 students attend South Hadley High, in the eighth through twelfth grades, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen years old.

B. Findings of Fact

The following facts emerged from the bench trial, which took place from March 28, 1994 to April 1, 1994.

The controversy over T-shirts in South Hadley can be traced back to some time during the 1991 school year. Prior to this time, an informal system was in place at the school. If a student wore an objectionable T-shirt to class, a teacher would ask the student to remove it or turn it inside out. The number of times this occurred in the past was minimal.

Then came the "Button Your Fly" controversy. Charles Kimball, principal of the high school in 1991, sent home a student wearing a T-shirt with this popular Levi-Strauss logo. At that time, the dress guidelines at South Hadley High School were set out in the folder given to each student at the beginning of the school year. A section entitled "Personal Appearance" stated:

Personal appearance should not disrupt the educational process, call individual attention to the individual, violate federal, state, or local health and obscenity laws, or affect the welfare and safety of the students, teachers, or classmates. Students will be asked to change inappropriate attire.

Under this provision, Kimball sent the student home to change his T-shirt. Unfortunately, on his way from school the student fell off his moped and broke his arm.

The next day, approximately 20 to 30 students wore "Button Your Fly" T-shirts to school and staged a peaceful sit-in to protest the banning and the injury to their classmate. Jeffrey, then a sophomore at the high school, participated in this demonstration. Jonathan, a student in the middle school at the time, also wore the "Button Your Fly" T-shirt to his school.

In response to the protest, Principal Kimball eventually decided to allow the students to wear the T-shirts pending a school committee meeting on the subject. As now, the school committee consisted of five members.

At a meeting on May 24, 1991, the school committee decided, by a 3-2 vote, to allow the students to wear the ...