L&S HOME>>>Newton Overview>>>Injunction Order Analysis
Newton v. Rockingham County Schools
The Constitution in
the Classroom
As expected, Judge Michael denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. The injunction would have required the defendants to allow Mr. Newton to post the Banned Books List on the outside of his classroom door until trial. Judge Michael’s decision is very much in favor of the defendants and indicates how the court may ultimately rule in this case.
A court must balance four factors in deciding whether or not to grant a preliminary injunction: (1) the likelihood of irreparable harm to the plaintiff if the preliminary injunction is denied; (2) the likelihood of harm to the defendant if the requested relief is granted; (3) the likelihood that the plaintiff will succeed on the merits; and (4) the public interest. Hoechst Diafoil Co. v. Nan Ya Plastics, 174 F.3d 411 (4th Cir. 1999). Judge Michael decided that the plaintiffs failed to establish any of the four factors.
The Newton court held that the plaintiffs would not suffer irreparable harm (money would not compensate for the loss) if the injunction did not issue because “nothing has been banned, nor has any book or flyer been discarded. The pamphlets remain at SHS in the classrooms.” Id. at 7. The court also decided that the defendants would be harmed by the preliminary injunction because an injunction would impair the defendants’ authority to run the school. The court then addressed each of the three legal theories which the plaintiffs relied on in considering whether the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
Plaintiffs argued that Mr. Newton had a right to post the banned books list because it involved a matter of public concern. An issue of public concern is one that is of general interest to members of the community, such as censorship, and a teacher has a right to speak about such matters at school. This is contrasted with issues of private concern such as working conditions and school policies which a teacher does not have a right to discuss at school. The United States Supreme Court has held that the right of public school officials to control the content of school curriculum overrides a teacher’s first amendment right to discuss issues of public concern. Pickering v. Board of Educ. of Township High School, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). The Supreme Court has defined curriculum very broadly to include “other expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the school might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school.” Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeir, 484 U.S. 260 (1988), holding that a school newspaper written by students could be censored by the principal. The Newton court found that members of the public might reasonably believe that the pamphlet posted on the outside of Mr. Newton’s classroom door was endorsed or approved by the school. Therefore, under Pickering the court held that Mr. Newton could be prevented from posting the list on the door because it affected the curriculum of the school. Calling a list posted on a door part of school curriculum seems to defy common sense, but it does appear to fit the Supreme Court’s definition.
Plaintiffs also argued that the defendants banning of the list was viewpoint discrimination which is prohibited absent a compelling state interest. The court held that removal of the list did not constitute viewpoint discrimination because the motivation of the defendants was not to stifle the plaintiffs’ message that censorship is wrong, but was instead motivated by a desire that high school students not be encouraged to read the books on the list. This is an ironic decision by the court as the defendants’ goal that students not be exposed to a list of objectionable books without teacher supervision is itself censorship.
The court also dismissed the plaintiffs’ argument that the defendants created a public forum by allowing teachers unrestricted access to use the outside of their classroom doors to post items of interest. A public forum is created when a governmental entity allows people to use certain public facilities to voice their ideas without restriction for some period of time. Once created, a governmental entity may not restrict expression in the forum unless it shows that it has a compelling state interest to do so. The court stated that it would be “ludicrous to insist that teachers could post anything they want on their doorways.” Id. at 17. This summary dismissal is not a thorough analysis of the public forum issue as the court did not decide whether or not the doorways were in fact public forums. If the court found that they were, the court then would have to decide whether or not the defendants had a compelling state interest in restricting the use of the public forum.
Finally, the court decided that it was not in the public interest to issue the injunction because federal courts should not set aside decisions of school administrators. The court stated that members of the community should be left to determine what type of education their children receive through the democratic process of electing members to the school board.
Although the court noted that its conclusions were made on an incomplete record and that the court might change its mind after all of the evidence is introduced, our review of this case indicates that most of the relevant facts have been presented to the court and considered by it in making its decision. This decision indicates that the plaintiffs will ultimately lose because the court found against them on every single issue (and the court did need to do so in order to deny the preliminary injunction). A trial date has not yet been scheduled, although the plaintiffs (according to newspaper accounts) have vowed to fight on.