Griswold v. Driscoll
616 F.3d 53, 2010 WL 3169372 (2010)
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Rule of Law:
State education officials have broad discretion to determine public school curriculum content, and their decisions to revise curriculum, even in response to political pressure, do not violate the First Amendment because curriculum is a form of government speech.
Facts:
- A 1998 Massachusetts law required the State Board of Education to create an advisory curriculum guide on genocide and human rights, which was to include the 'Armenian genocide' as a topic.
- In January 1999, Commissioner David Driscoll circulated a draft guide that explicitly referred to the 'Armenian genocide' and described actions of the Ottoman Empire against its Armenian population.
- After a Turkish cultural group objected and requested the inclusion of a 'contra-genocide perspective,' Driscoll revised the guide to add citations to resources supporting this alternative view.
- This revised version, including the contra-genocide materials, was submitted to the state legislature in March 1999.
- In June 1999, following pressure from Armenian groups and state politicians, Driscoll issued a second revision of the guide.
- This final revision removed all references to Turkish websites and other sources that questioned whether the events constituted genocide, leaving only sources aligned with the Armenian perspective.
Procedural Posture:
- A group of students, parents, teachers, and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) filed suit against the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education in the U.S. District Court.
- The complaint alleged that revising the curriculum guide to remove 'contra-genocide' viewpoints violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights.
- The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint.
- The district court held that ATAA's claim was barred by the statute of limitations and that the remaining plaintiffs' claims failed because the guide was a form of government speech exempt from First Amendment scrutiny.
- The plaintiffs appealed the dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a state education commissioner's decision to revise an advisory curriculum guide by removing certain viewpoints in response to political pressure violate the First Amendment rights of students, parents, and teachers?
Opinions:
Majority - Souter, Associate Justice
No, the commissioner's decision to revise the curriculum guide in response to political pressure does not violate the First Amendment. The court distinguished between a school library, where students have a right to voluntary inquiry under Board of Education v. Pico, and school curriculum, over which state officials have broad discretion. The guide is properly classified as curriculum, not a library, because its primary purpose is to provide teachers with a framework and resources for instruction. The court reasoned that public schools play a crucial role in inculcating community values, and curriculum decisions are a form of government speech. As government speech, the state may choose the viewpoints it wishes to express, and these choices are not subject to First Amendment viewpoint discrimination challenges. Therefore, the revision of the guide, even if politically motivated, was a permissible exercise of the state's authority to control its own educational message.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the broad power of state and local governments to control the content of public school curricula, drawing a sharp line between curriculum and school libraries. By classifying curriculum as government speech, the court shields it from viewpoint discrimination claims that might otherwise succeed under the First Amendment. This precedent strengthens the government speech doctrine within the educational context and signals that federal courts are highly reluctant to intervene in conflicts over what is taught in schools, even when those decisions are politically charged. Future challenges to curriculum content based on viewpoint exclusion will likely fail unless they can demonstrate that the material at issue functions more like a library than a direct component of the state's pedagogical program.
