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Federal judge: School officials' argument can't 'hold water' in student poem case

By David Hudson
The Freedom Forum Online

08.23.00

A federal judge has ordered an Oklahoma school district to "immediately" reinstate a high school student who wrote a poem about killing a teacher.

An 11th-grade student, identified in court papers only as "M.G.," was suspended last spring for the remainder of the semester and for the entire first semester of the 2000-2001 school year after Owasso school officials found her poem.

The poem reads:

M.G. gave a copy of the poem to a friend but never showed it to anyone, including the teacher. School officials discovered the poem after it fell out of the friend's bookbag.

School officials suspended M.G., even though after a short investigation they concluded the poem was not a true threat. The officials maintained that the poem could create a substantial disruption of the environment in the school, which has a zero-tolerance policy regarding "threatening behavior."

D.G. and C.G., parents of M.G., sued the school district in federal court on behalf of their daughter, alleging a violation of her First Amendment rights. On Aug. 21, U.S. District Judge James O. Ellison granted M.G. a preliminary injunction in D.G. v. Independent School Dist. No. 11, ordering school officials to allow her to attend school pending the outcome of the case.

Ellison reasoned that two important factual questions must be resolved in order to decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction. The first question is whether M.G. intended the poem as a true threat. The second question is "whether the conduct substantially disrupted the operation of the school or invaded the rights of others."

"Clearly, if she had intended this poem to convey a genuine threat, or even if she wrote the poem with the intent of putting teachers in fear by making them think it was a genuine threat, the school district could appropriately punish her," Ellison wrote.

But, he wrote, school officials admitted that "regardless of Student's intentions, the school administration did not perceive the poem as a genuine threat."

Ellison said he was sensitive to the school officials' plight in the context of school violence. "The concern for faculty and student safety is particularly high in view of recent episodes of student violence in Colorado, Oklahoma and other states," he wrote.

However, he concluded that the poem did not create a substantial disruption of the school environment.

"Essentially the argument is that if Student's act of disrespect goes unpunished, it will be a substantial disruption to the school system in general because it will undermine the school's authority to discipline students," Ellison wrote. "However, that argument simply cannot hold water against the rights found in the First Amendment."

Ellison ruled that school officials would have been justified in imposing a "short-term" suspension until they could investigate the circumstances of the case. However, after it was determined that the poem was not a true threat and did not substantially disrupt the school, M.G. should have been allowed to return to school.

James W. Tilly, M.G.'s attorney, praised the decision as "victory for student First Amendment rights."

"The poem was not a true threat, rather it was simply the expression of a student irritated about a teacher and blowing off steam in private," Tilly said. "The student never intended anyone other than one friend to see this poem.

"The judge reasoned that given the content of the poem school officials could perhaps justify a short-term suspension, but this was a case of school overreaction," Tilly said.

Karen Long, attorney for the school district, was in trial and unavailable for comment.