Court to consider appeal of ruling that district violated student's right to distribute literature
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (KY, OH, MI, TN) will consider the appeal of a ruling by a federal court in Michigan, summarized below, that a school district violated the First Amendment rights of a middle school student by insisting that he distribute his anti-abortion literature before or after school or in designated places, rather than in hallways between classes. NSBA, joined by the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the state school boards associations of Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, has filed an amicus brief, also below, in support of the school district. The brief urges the court, however it decides the case, to reject the lower court’s determination that a school may not set rules even for the mere time, place, and manner of student expression unless such rules are necessary to avoid a "material and substantial disruption" within the meaning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969). Subjecting such routine decisions to the Tinker disruption standard, the brief argues, would ignore the widespread understanding that courts instead consider the type of forum at issue and generally impose more lenient legal standards to such determinations. To uphold the district court’s particular approach is unnecessary to protect speech, the brief warns, and would complicate rather than clarify an area of law even the courts themselves have declared confusing.
[NSBA School Law pages on M.A.L. v. Kinsland]
[NSBA et al. brief]