Walker-Serrano ex rel. Walker v. Leonard

• Decision Date: 15 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-4098.,01-4098.
• Citation: 325 F.3d 412
• Parties: Amanda WALKER-SERRANO, by her parents; Lisa WALKER; Michael Serrano v. Donald LEONARD, Individually and in his official capacity as President of the Lackawanna Trail School Board; Clyde Ellsworth, Dr., Individually and in his official capacity as Superintendent of the Lackawanna Trail School District; Nancy Simon, Individually and in her official capacity as Principal of the Lackawanna Trail Elementary School; Pat Carpenter, Individually and in her official capacity as a teacher at the Lackawanna Trail Elementary School Amanda Walker-Serrano, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

325 F.3d 412

Amanda WALKER-SERRANO, by her parents; Lisa WALKER; Michael Serrano v. Donald LEONARD, Individually and in his official capacity as President of the Lackawanna Trail School Board; Clyde Ellsworth, Dr., Individually and in his official capacity as Superintendent of the Lackawanna Trail School District; Nancy Simon, Individually and in her official capacity as Principal of the Lackawanna Trail Elementary School; Pat Carpenter, Individually and in her official capacity as a teacher at the Lackawanna Trail Elementary School Amanda Walker-Serrano, Appellant.

No. 01-4098.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued/Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) July 12, 2002.

Filed April 15, 2003.

Gordon A. Einhorn (Argued), Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis, Harrisburg, PA, for Appellants.

Stephen S. Russell (Argued), Melinda B. Kaufmann, Stock & Leader, York, PA, for Appellees.

Before: SCIRICA and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges, and FULLAM, District Judge.^*

OPINION OF THE COURT

SCIRICA, Circuit Judge.

In this civil rights action, plaintiff, a third grade elementary school student, sued her teachers, school principal and school board for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for allegedly preventing her from circulating a petition objecting to a planned third grade outing to the circus. The District Court granted summary judgment to defendants. We will affirm.

I.

Plaintiff Amanda Walker-Serrano was a nine-year-old third grade student at the Lackawanna Trail Elementary School. Walker-Serrano's third grade class planned a voluntary field trip to the Shriner's circus in Wilkes-Barre on April 7, 1999. Walker-Serrano did not approve of the voluntary outing because she believed the circus was cruel to animals. As a result, she prepared a handwritten petition stating, "We 3rd grade kids don't want to go to the circus because they hurt animals. We want a better feild [sic] trip." On February 4, Walker-Serrano brought the petition to the playground at recess, where she persuaded more than thirty of her classmates to sign it.

The following day, February 5, Walker-Serrano was at her classroom desk during a class period of silent reading and independent work. A few students gathered at Walker-Serrano's desk. The classroom teacher, Elaine Mercanti, while breaking up the gathering, observed the petition on Walker-Serrano's desk and told her to put it away.

Later that day, Walker-Serrano again brought her petition to the schoolyard at recess. Defendant Pat Carpenter, one of the teachers supervising recess, observed a group of students around Walker-Serrano near a patch of ice on the playground. Carpenter then noticed that one of the female students was crying — she had fallen on the ice and was bleeding. Carpenter observed Walker-Serrano with a pencil or pen and the petition in the middle of the students and fearing that a student might be injured by the pencil or pen, instructed Walker-Serrano to put the objects away. Walker-Serrano contends that Carpenter told her either "put it away" or "you can't have that here."¹

Walker-Serrano was never punished for soliciting signatures for her petition or for possessing the petition. Furthermore, Walker-Serrano attended the Lackawanna School Board meeting on February 22, 1999 in order to express her opposition to the scheduled circus field trip.

On April 7, 1999, the third grade class attended the Shriner circus as planned. Walker-Serrano and her mother stood outside the circus and protested alleged cruelty to animals. Local media covered the protest.

The day prior, April 6, Walker-Serrano sought — and received — permission to pass out coloring books and stickers which dealt with cruelty to animals at the circus to her fellow students at school.

There was also some interplay between Walker-Serrano's parents — Lisa Walker and Michael Serrano — and school officials. When Walker-Serrano returned home on February 5, she informed her mother that she was not permitted to circulate her petition. Mrs. Walker telephoned defendant Nancy Simon, principal of the Lackawanna Trail Elementary School, and defendant Donald Leonard, president of the school board.

Shortly thereafter, Lisa Walker and Michael Serrano retained an attorney, who sent the school district a letter raising concerns about possible violations of Walker-Serrano's First Amendment rights. The district's solicitor, Sandra Boyle, responded that no rights were violated because Walker-Serrano was not prevented from expressing her views on the circus; she was simply told to put the petition away when her "activities briefly disrupted classroom instruction and may have contributed to a situation where another child fell down during recess." Boyle also expressed the view that "[e]lementary schools are not generally the environment for petition circulation."

On February 22, 1999, Walker-Serrano's parents accompanied her to the school board meeting to raise their concerns about the handling of the petition. Walker-Serrano's parents spoke, and the board and Principal Simon received copies of the petition, but no action was taken. Three days later, Solicitor Boyle sent a letter to Walker-Serrano's attorney noting a school policy² that requires prior review of materials to be distributed by students.

Walker-Serrano's counsel suggested that the presentation at the board meeting should satisfy the requirements of the policy and that, because the policy allows distribution after two days of inaction by the school, Walker-Serrano could circulate the petition. Boyle responded that the petition had not been properly "presented for review." No request to circulate the petition was made after this time.

Walker-Serrano, by her parents, sued the president of the Lackawanna School Board, Donald Leonard; the superintendent of the school district, Clyde Ellsworth; Principal Nancy Simon; and teacher Pat Carpenter, all in their personal and official capacities. They seek damages from the defendants individually and from the school district for alleged violations of Walker-Serrano's rights to freedom of speech and association, violations of her right to petition for redress of grievances, and also under several state constitutional and common law causes of action.

The District Court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, concluding Walker-Serrano's First Amendment rights were not violated as a matter of law, and finding defendants entitled to qualified immunity. The District Court also concluded the school district — in the person of Donald Leonard in his official capacity — could not be liable, as it lacked sufficient involvement in the actions complained of. Plaintiff appealed.

II.

The public school environment presents special challenges for determining the extent of the First Amendment's protections. That the First Amendment protects student expression within schools is beyond challenge. See Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969) ("It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."). But the First Amendment has never been interpreted to interfere with the authority of schools to maintain an environment conducive to learning. The Supreme Court "has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools." Id. at 507, 89 S.Ct. 733. Accordingly, "conduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason — whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior — 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."³ Id. at 513, 89 S.Ct. 733.

This framework has generally been used to assess the constitutionality of restrictions on speech in high schools and middle schools. In those contexts, we have required that the school demonstrate a "well-founded expectation of disruption" or of interference with the rights of others, before upholding the restriction. Sypniewski v. Warren Hills Reg'l Bd. of Ed., 307 F.3d 243, 253 (3d Cir.2002); Saxe, 240 F.3d at 212.

But any analysis of the students' rights to expression on the one hand, and of schools' need to control behavior and foster an environment conducive to learning on the other, must necessarily take into account the age and maturity of the student. Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683-84, 106 S.Ct. 3159; Muller by Muller v. Jefferson Lighthouse Sch., 98 F.3d 1530, 1538 (7th Cir.1996) ("Age is a critical factor in student speech cases. . . ."); Baxter by Baxter v. Vigo County Sch. Corp., 26 F.3d 728, 738 (7th Cir.1994) ("[A]ge is a relevant factor in assessing the extent of a student's free speech rights in school."). The significance of age in this inquiry has called into question the appropriateness of employing the Tinker framework to assess the constitutionality of restrictions on the expression of elementary school students. No other Court of Appeals⁴ has ruled on the applicability of Tinker in this context. District courts engaging this issue have generally found that Tinker provides an appropriate mode of analysis of elementary school students' First Amendment rights. Johnston-Loehner v. O'Brien, 859 F.Supp. 575 (M.D.Fla.1994) (distribution of religious literature); Jeglin ex rel. Jeglin v. San Jacinto Unified Sch. Dist., 827 F.Supp. 1459 (C.D.Cal.1993) (school dress code).

There can be little doubt that speech appropriate for eighteen-year-old high school students is not necessarily acceptable for seven-year-old grammar school students. Human sexuality provides the most obvious example of age-sensitive matter, see Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683-84, 106 S.Ct. 3159, but there are any number of topics that are more appropriate...