The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case that
stemmed from public school officials’ refusal to display a kindergarten
student’s artwork containing a picture of Jesus.
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
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