Virgil v. School Board of Columbia County
862 F.2d 1517 (1989)
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Rule of Law:
A school board's decision to remove a textbook from a high school curriculum does not violate the First Amendment if the decision is reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns, such as protecting students from material considered vulgar and sexually explicit.
Facts:
- Since 1975, Columbia High School offered an elective 'Humanities to 1500' course for eleventh and twelfth-grade students.
- In 1985, the prescribed textbook for the course was Volume I of 'The Humanities: Cultural Roots and Continuities,' which was a state-approved textbook.
- The textbook included English translations of Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Geoffrey Chaucer's The Miller's Tale as optional, non-required readings.
- During the fall 1985 semester, a portion of Lysistrata was read aloud in one session of the course.
- In the spring of 1986, Reverend and Mrs. Fritz M. Fountain, parents of a student who had been in the class, filed a formal complaint with the School Board of Columbia County, objecting to Lysistrata and The Miller's Tale.
- Following the complaint, the School Board, disagreeing with an advisory committee's recommendation to retain the book, voted to discontinue any future use of the textbook in the curriculum.
- The parties stipulated that the School Board's decision was motivated by the sexuality, vulgarity, and perceived immorality of the two literary selections.
- After its removal from the curriculum, the textbook was placed in locked storage, but copies of it and other versions of the two works remained available for student use in the school library.
Procedural Posture:
- Parents of students at Columbia High School (plaintiffs) filed an action against the School Board and Superintendent (defendants) in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
- The plaintiffs sought an injunction against the textbook removal and a declaration that the action violated their First Amendment rights.
- The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment.
- The district court (a trial court) denied the plaintiffs' motion and granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, holding that the school board's action was constitutional.
- The plaintiffs (appellants) appealed the district court's judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a school board's decision to remove a textbook containing excerpts of Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Chaucer's The Miller's Tale from an elective high school humanities course, based on the vulgarity and sexual explicitness of the material, violate the First Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Anderson, Circuit Judge
No, the school board's decision does not violate the First Amendment. A school board may remove a textbook from the curriculum without contravening constitutional limits if its action is reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. The court applied the standard from Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which grants educators greater control over expression in curricular matters. First, the court determined that the removal of the textbook was a curricular decision, as the book was part of a course of study offered by the school, even though the course was elective and the readings were optional, because it bore the 'imprimatur of the school.' Second, the court found the Board's stipulated motivation—its concern over the material's sexual explicitness and vulgarity—to be a legitimate pedagogical concern, consistent with a school's responsibility to consider the emotional maturity of its students. Finally, the court concluded that the Board's action was reasonably related to this concern, given that the literary works contained passages of 'exceptional sexual explicitness' and the students were mostly minors. The court emphasized that its role was not to second-guess the wisdom of the Board's decision, but only to assess its constitutionality.
Analysis:
This case solidifies the application of the deferential Hazelwood 'reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns' standard to a school board's curricular decisions, distinguishing it from the stricter scrutiny applied to school library book removals in Board of Education v. Pico. The ruling broadens the definition of 'curriculum' to include elective courses and even optional readings within an approved textbook. This gives school boards significant authority to remove classroom materials based on content objections like vulgarity and sexual explicitness, as long as their motive is educational and not simply to suppress disfavored ideas. The decision thus reinforces the power of local school officials in shaping curriculum content against First Amendment challenges.
