Eagle Point Education Association v. Jackson County School District No. 9

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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and attorney's fees in favor of plaintiffs in a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action challenging a public school's policies. The policies prohibited, among other things, picketing on school district property, and prohibited strikers from coming onto school grounds, even for reasons unrelated to an anticipated teachers' strike. Plaintiffs also filed state law claims. The panel held that the government speech doctrine did not authorize the government's suppression of contrary views. In this case, no reasonable observer would have misperceived the speech which the school district sought to suppress—speech favoring the teachers' side in the strike—as a position taken by the school district itself. The panel also held that, because the school district's policies were neither reasonable nor viewpoint neutral, they failed even the non-public forum test and thus violated the First Amendment rights of Union members. Furthermore, the policies violated rights of Union members under the Oregon Constitution, and the school district was properly held liable for the actions of its security officer in barring Plaintiff Boyer from the school parking lot because she had a sign on the back windshield of her car supporting the teachers. View "Eagle Point Education Association v. Jackson County School District No. 9" on Justia Law