Sullivan v. Houston Independent School District

• Decision Date: 23 June 1971
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 69-H-266.
• Citation: 333 F. Supp. 1149
• Parties: Dan SULLIVAN, by next friend Daniel H. Sullivan, Michael Fischer, by next friend George David Fischer, et al. v. HOUSTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

333 F. Supp. 1149

Dan SULLIVAN, by next friend Daniel H. Sullivan, Michael Fischer, by next friend George David Fischer, et al. v. HOUSTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT et al.

Civ. A. No. 69-H-266.

United States District Court, S. D. Texas, Houston Division.

June 23, 1971.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert Hall, Eric Nelson, Dixie, Wolf & Hall, Houston, Tex., for plaintiffs.

William Key Wilde, L. Kelly Frels, Bracewell & Patterson, Houston, Tex., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

SEALS, District Judge.

This action is before the court on movant's motion for an order requiring respondents to show cause why they should not be adjudged in contempt of this court for respondents' alleged violation of a permanent injunctive decree issued by the court under date of December 30, 1969; further, on movant's motion for supplementary injunctive relief to effect the better implementation of the court's previous injunction; and further, on movant's motion for damages sustained as a result of respondents' allegedly contemptuous conduct.

Summary of Facts

In 1969, Dan Sullivan and Michael Fischer, two 12th grade students of the Houston Independent School District, were suspended from Sharpstown Junior-Senior High School because of their involvement in the production and distribution of a certain publication which they called the Pflashlyte and which criticized school officials. Shortly after their suspension, the students filed a complaint in this court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in which they sought an order compelling their reinstatement, and in which they further sought, both for themselves and as representatives of the class of persons aggrieved, injunctive and declaratory relief against certain regulations of the Houston Independent School District, all pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201 and Rule 23, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

After a lengthy trial the court, in a Memorandum Opinion under date of November 17, 1969, 307 F.Supp. 1328 (S.D. Tex.1969), made, inter alia, the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

1. That the minor plaintiffs, Sullivan and Fischer, qualified as proper representatives of the class whose interest they sought to protect;

2. That minor plaintiffs were disciplined because school officials disliked the contents of their publication and that discipline for such reason is constitutionally impermissible;

3. That the procedures utilized to effect the suspension of minor plaintiffs failed to provide them with those minimal safeguards of due process mandated by the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution;

4. That the School District's regulation under which minor plaintiffs were suspended¹ was constitutionally void for both "vagueness" and "overbreadth".

On December 30, 1969, this court issued its "Permanent Injunction Decree and Declaratory Judgment," which, after redressing the particular grievances of the minor plaintiffs, Sullivan and Fischer, granted the following relief to all members of the class of persons which Sullivan and Fischer had been adjudged to represent:

The named defendants, their successors in office, and their present and future agents, servants and employees and all persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of this permanent injunction decree are hereby permanently enjoined and restrained from promulgating, maintaining or enforcing any regulation, plan or policy designed to prohibit absolutely the publication or distribution of all newspapers or other similar expressions of opinion or statements of fact by covered students on school premises. In the event that the defendant trustees, or their successors in office, shall determine to promulgate, maintain or enforce or cause the promulgation, maintenance or enforcement of any regulation, plan or policy designed or calculated to regulate the production or distribution of newspapers or other similar written expressions of opinion or statements of fact by covered students on school premises, they and each of them are permanently restrained and enjoined from doing so except by written rule to be furnished to each covered student to which it applies, or to be posted on a bulletin board or other place accessible to the covered students at each school so they may know or have notice of the existence thereof. The said defendants and their successors in office are further permanently restrained and enjoined from the promulgation, maintenance and enforcement of any such rule unless the following conditions are met:

1. The rule must be specific as to places and times where possession and distribution of published materials is prohibited.

2. The rule must be understandable to persons of the age and experience of covered students.

3. The rule must not prohibit or inhibit conduct which is orderly, peaceful and reasonably quiet and which is not coercive of any other person's right to accept or reject any written material being distributed subject to the rule.

4. The rule may prohibit such distribution at times and in places where normal classroom activity is being conducted. Such rule may not prohibit such distribution at other times and places unless such prohibition is necessary to prevent substantial and material interference with or delay of normal classroom activity or normal school function. As used herein, "normal classroom activity" means organized educational activity of students under the direct supervision of a teacher or a school administrator. Such phrase includes student activity in library areas, physical education classes, whether conducted indoors or outdoors, official assemblies and other similar gatherings. "Normal school function" means such activities as athletic contests, band concerts, school plays and scheduled on-campus lunch periods. Further, the peaceful, orderly, non-coercive distribution of written material before the commencement of classes in the morning and after the conclusion of classes in the afternoon by students lawfully on or off the premises of the school in which they are enrolled shall not be prohibited unless, under the circumstances, such distribution substantially and materially interferes with some normal classroom activity or normal school function as those phrases are hereinabove defined.

5. The rule must not subject any covered student to the threat of discipline because of the reaction or response of any other person to the written material, provided, however, that defendants and their successors in office may prohibit or punish the publication or distribution of obscene material or of libelous material for which a cause of action may exist in some person.

It is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the defendants and their successors in office, and their present or future agents, servants and employees, are permanently restrained and enjoined from imposing substantial discipline upon any covered student who is subject to the regulatory authority of defendants, unless they shall observe and follow the procedures hereafter set forth. "Substantial discipline" as herein used is hereby defined to include any expulsion or suspension from classes or attendance at school for more than three days, and any expulsion or suspension from classes or attendance at school which is not specifically limited to three days or less at the time of imposition. The procedures herein required shall include at least the following:

1. The covered student and at least one of his parents or his guardian shall be furnished, either in person or by mail directed to the student's last known address, with written notice of the charges and of the nature of the evidence against such covered student.

2. The covered student and at least one of his parents or guardian shall be offered a formal hearing after sufficient time to prepare a defense or reply, at which hearing evidence in support of the charge shall be presented by school officials and the affected covered student or his parent or guardian shall have ample opportunity to present any defense or reply.

3. The decision of school officials to impose such discipline shall be based upon a dispassionate and fair consideration of substantial evidence that the covered student committed the acts for which discipline is to be imposed and that such acts are in fact a proper reason for such discipline.

Pursuant to the plaintiffs' prayer for declaratory relief, it is the judgment of this court that:

1. That the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of of the United States apply to the administration of the public school by the defendants, their successors in office, their agents, servants and employees and inure to the benefit of the class of covered students as that term is herein defined, now or hereafter enrolled in such schools. Therefore, the absolute prohibition of all publication and distribution of printed and written material by students is unconstitutional.

2. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the defendants from imposing discipline upon covered students on the basis of claimed violations of rules or regulations which are so vaguely worded that students subject to such rules and regulations, although conscientiously desiring of abiding by them, would nevertheless be in doubt about the boundary line between permitted and prohibited conduct.

3. For both of the foregoing reasons defendants' rule or regulation as follows:

THE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

The school principal may make such rules and regulations that may be necessary in the administration of the school and in promoting its best interests. He may enforce obedience to any reasonable and lawful command.

is hereby declared to be null and void upon its face. Further, it was stipulated by the parties that this rule is the "only written rule or regulation of the Houston Independent School District concerning the private publication and distribution of written material by students in secondary

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