On The Front Lines
Rutherford Institute Attorneys Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Case of Student Jailed Under Zero Tolerance Policy for Art Sketch
Citing School Overreaction to Columbine, Institute Attorneys Call for Common Sense Standard in SchoolsWASHINGTON, DC -- Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a high school student who was expelled from school, charged with two felonies and thrown into jail for four days as a result of a two-year-old drawing that his younger brother inadvertently brought to school. In appealing to the high court in defense of Adam Porter's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Institute attorneys have asked the court to rule that off-campus student speech that is neither directed at a school nor intended to be communicated on school grounds is entitled to full First Amendment protection. A copy of the Institute's brief is available online here.
"We are in a new paradigm of lockdown and surveillance in our public schools," said John W. Whitehead, president and founder of The Rutherford Institute. "Zero tolerance has become the bureaucrat's dream. If a kid brings a pistol to school with the intent to harm, should school officials really treat him the same as a kid who accidentally has a box cutter? Should they be treated the same way? I don't think so."
In 1999, Adam Porter, then 14 years old, drew a picture of his school, East Ascension High School, in a sketchpad in the privacy of his home. The drawing depicted the school under siege by a gasoline tanker truck, a helicopter and a missile launcher. Two years later, Adam's brother Andrew used the sketchpad for his own drawings, then took the pad to school. After a fellow student saw the old drawing by Adam Porter and showed it to school officials, Andrew was questioned about the drawing and suspended for possessing the sketch on school grounds. School officials at East Ascension Parish School then questioned and searched Adam, who had no previous disciplinary record, and found a box cutter that Adam was using in his after-school job at a grocery store. Later that day, Adam was arrested for terrorizing the school and carrying an illegal weapon. He spent four nights in jail. In filing suit against the school district, Institute attorneys charged that school officials violated Adam and Andrew's First Amendment rights by punishing them for the content of a drawing. However, referencing the school shootings at Columbine High School and the need for school officials "to be aware of the events occurring at other schools to properly protect their students and faculty," U.S. District Judge Frank J. Polozola held that Adam's drawing constituted a true threat and, thus, received no First Amendment protection. On appeal, a panel for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with the lower court ruling, holding that Adam's sketch was entitled to First Amendment protection. "Private writings made and kept in one's home enjoy the protections of the First Amendment, as well as the Fourth," the panel wrote. "For such writings to lose their First Amendment protection, something more than their accidental and unintentional exposure to public scrutiny must take place." Nevertheless, the Fifth Circuit still ruled in favor of the school officials by granting them qualified immunity, a doctrine that protects government officials from liability in civil rights actions when they do not violate clearly established principles of law. In petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, Institute attorneys are challenging the appeal court's application of the qualified immunity doctrine.
The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
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