Graduation Speakers

[Stanley M. Morris]

Applause: Recently, U.S. Dist Judge Matsch issued a ruling in favor of the
school dress code of Arvada H.S., in a Denver suburb, denying the claim of
four African - American students who wished to express ethnic pride by
wearing stoles, called kente -cloths. The school balked because they could
then be required to allow the friendly neighborhood Aryan Nation graduate
to expess his "ethnic pride" by showing up wearing a Nazi armband. Judge
Matsch's opinion was not published, or, at least, has not yet reached
Westlaw, but newspaper accounts of the ruling indicated to me that school
officials could control the happenings at graqduation ceremonies in much
the same basis as described by Prof. Brownstein. in his first four paragraphs.

Stan Morris
Attorney
Cortez, Colorado

At 10:37 AM 6/11/98 -0700, A.E. Brownstein wrote:
>        I think I have a different perspective on graduation speakers than
many of
>the thoughtful comments on the list. (I admit I haven't read them all - I
>was away for two weeks and there were well over 100 notes on my computer
>waiting my return.)
>
>        I continue to be conservative on the issue of student speech at
school
>sponsored events. A school graduation is a highly orchestrated, structured
>event intended to serve specific purposes. I do not believe it is an
>appropriate forum for partisan political debate, sectarian religious
>proslytizing, or many other messages. As a policy matter, I think school
>authorities shouild monitor the content of expression at such events.
>Certainly, when I attended public school school, officials routinely
>exercised such authority. No student speaker would have been permitted to
>criticize American soldiers or foreign policy at graduation. (see Jim
>Henderson's note.) All such subjects were off limits at an event that was
>intended to serve a different purpose.
>
>        (As a policy matter, I think these limits are appropriate. My
father did
>not get to finish high school. He had to go to work to help support his
>family. Attending my graduation from high school was a special event for
>him. There are lots of opportunities for snot nosed brats to make fools of
>themselves. There are not that many specials events for parents. I see
>little reason to sacrifice what graduations mean to parents in order to
>give student speakers license to express inappropriate messages at such
>events.)
>
>        As a constitutional matter, I think a school need not have a student
>speaker at graduation. If they elect to have one, the school principle
>could decide to write the student speech to be delivered at the event. I
>think a student would have the constitutional right to refuse to read such
>a speach, but I see nothing in the first amendment that precludes public
>school officials from scripting every word that is expressed as part of a
>high school assembly. If students want to participate in the school play,
>they have to express the lines assigned to them. They do not have a
>constitutional right to improvise. The same rules apply to chorus,
>orchestra, the debating society, and the plays the quarterback calls on the
>football team. A graduation assembly can be similarly supervised. The
>speech permitted at the assembly is government speech -- a part of the
>school program under the control of school administrators.
>
>        The more difficult constitutional question is how we evaluate a
graduation
>event where the
>school authorities decline to exercise the kind of authority I described
>above. I have difficulty conceptualizing the student delivering the
>validictory address as a speaker in a designated public forum for many of
>the reasons Doug Laycock suggested. It is after all a strange kind of
>forum. Only one person gets to speak, no one can respond, and the audience
>is coerced and captive. Moreover, the school could, in theory, undesignate
>the graduation as a public forum if it learned ahead of time that a student
>planned to express an extremely inappropriate message. (I have never been
>sure about the rules that control undesignating a public forum -- but I
>think the possibility exists.)
>
>        If the graduation is a nonpublic forum, reasonable content
discriminatory
>rules will be upheld. I think  a prohibition against advocacy or speech on
>controversial subjects might be upheld under this rubric.
>
>        It is also not clear to me where the private actor -- government
actor
>line should be drawn here for first amendment purposes. Assume a private
>citizen is invited to "guest teach" a class in rhetoric at a public school
>and is provided few if any instructions regarding what he should speeak
>about. He elects to tell the students why they should join his religion and
>abandon their own. If the teacher interupts him, explains that this is not
>an appropriate lecture for the class, and tells him to stop speaking, has
>the citizen's first amendment rights been abridged? If the teacher does not
>interrupt him other than to tell the students that the speaker is
>expressing his own views, not those of the school, is there an
>establishment clause violation? If the guest speaker is a student, not an
>outsider, does the analysis change? If all of this occurs at an assembly or
>school sponsored event, but not in the classroom itself, is a different
>constitutional analysis required?
>
>
             Alan Brownstein
>
             UC Davis
>
>
>