SPLC

In declining to hear Baldwinsville School District v. Peck, the Court let stand a lower court decision that the Baldwinsville officials who censored the student's poster may have violated the student's First Amendment rights.

In 1999, Antonio Peck drew the poster in response to a class assignment asking students to make posters about the environment. Peck responded by including a depiction of Jesus in his poster, which was displayed for half a day on the cafeteria wall along with 80 other student posters.

According to a decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Pecks teacher requested the picture of Jesus to be folded under to avoid giving parents the perception that religion was taught as part of the environmental unit in her class.

The child's parents sued the Baldwinsville, N.Y. school district with the help of the Liberty Counsel, a religious freedom organization.

The federal district court in Syracuse dismissed the suit, but the 2nd Circuit ruled 3-0 in October 2005 in favor of Peck, holding that a public school may not censor a student's viewpoint on a permissible subject when it is in response to a school assignment.

The appeals court sent the case back to the district court for further examination of whether there was discrimination and, if so, whether it might be justified.

The school district asked the Supreme Court to consider the case.

The Supreme Court dealt with high school free speech in 1988 when the Court ruled in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier that a high school principal's censorship of a student newspaper that contained articles about sex and divorce was justified. The paper was part of the curriculum and the school's control over its content was ''reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns,'' according to the decision.

In the Baldwinsville case, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the case came ''within the core of Hazelwood's framework,'' but it said that the Hazelwood decision does not give administrators the ability to single out particular viewpoints for censorship, even if the censorship is ''reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.''

The Supreme Court's decision to allow the 2nd Circuit decision to stand strengthens First Amendment rights for people of all ages, said Liberty Counsel President Mathew D. Staver in a statement.

''It's about time that school officials learn a simple lesson -- private religious speech when expressed on public property is constitutionally protected,'' he said.

--by Emily Walker, SPLC staff writer