The Daily Signal - Law Firm Defends First Amendment Rights of Child Punished for 'Any Life' Matters Drawing

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

On July 15, the Pacific Legal Foundation asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court ruling in California that said elementary school students have no First Amendment rights. A six year old called B.B. in Capistrano Unified School District in Southern California was introduced to the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in her first-grade class during a lesson about Martin Luther King, Jr. After the lesson, the child drew a picture and wrote “Black Lives Mater (sic),” added “any life,” and gave the picture to her classmate. The school forced B.B. to apologize for her “racist” drawing, banned her from recess for two weeks, and even banned her from drawing pictures for friends. B.B.’s parents were never informed about the incident and found out years later.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Commissions fees and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETF's prospectus before investing. Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, July 26th. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell and I sat down with Pacific legal attorney Caleb Trotter about his case against Capistrano Unified School District in Southern California. The district severely punished a first grader for a drawing following a Black Lives Matter lesson at school, in which she wrote all lives on a picture she drew about Black Lives Matter.

The district argued that children don't have First Amendment rights. Stay tuned for my conversation with Caleb Trotter. after this. Hey, it's Rob Bluey from The Daily Signal. Want to stay ahead of the curve on conservative news and analysis? Subscribe to our free Daily Signal email newsletters. You'll get the latest headlines, detailed policy coverage, and exclusive interviews delivered straight to your inbox. Whether you're interested in our morning update, breaking news alerts, or weekly roundups, we've got you covered. Don't let the liberal media control the narrative. Sign up now at dailysignal.com slash email and join thousands of informed

who rely on the daily signal to cut through the noise and get the truth. I'm sitting down with Pacific legal attorney Caleb Trotter about the case. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Elizabeth. What happened that caused Capistrano Unified School District to say that children have no First Amendment rights? So this situation happened a couple years ago. A first grade teacher at Vieto Elementary School was teaching a unit on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the process was apparently reading a book that introduced the students who were first graders to the concept of Black Lives Matter.

And through teaching this unit, one student who will refer to as Bebe, felt bad for one of her classmates of color and decided to draw a picture. The picture said, Black Lives Matter. She had misspelled it because she's in first grade. she then below that added the phrase, any life, and then below that drew four little different colored circles that were to represent her and three of her classmates holding hands. And she then gave this picture to a classmate of color in an effort to make her feel included and welcomed. The classmate thanked her for it and took it home, didn't apparently think twice about it,

and then her mother found it later that evening in her backpack, and was concerned that her daughter was being singled out for her race and contacted the school to learn more about it. And what happened after that picture was turned into the school? So really the parents of the classmate who received the drawing really just wanted to know what was going on. They didn't know that Black Lives Matter was being taught to their first grade child. And so they inquired with the principal who told them that he would look into it. and upon looking into it, he told Bebe, the girl who drew the drawing, that the inclusion of the phrase,

any life was, quote, racist and inappropriate, end quote. And then he told her that she was not allowed to draw in school and get pictures to her classmates anymore. He told her that she had to apologize. And the teachers banned her from recess for two weeks, forcing her to sit on the bench and watch her classmates play without her. And all the while, he never gave an explanation to BB what she had done wrong, just simply that this was, this phrase was bad. And worse still, the principal never even contacted Beatty's parents to tell her, to tell them about this. And Beebe's parents didn't find out for a full year after the fact. Wow, that's really remarkable. And once Beebe's parents did find out

How did they feel about this incident? They were deeply alarmed and upset. At first, they just simply wanted an explanation. And once they learned that the facts were essentially what I just explained to you, they really just wanted an apology because it was evident that Beebe had done nothing wrong. The girl who she'd given the drawing to had made it clear, come to find out, had made it clear to the principle that they didn't want BB punished. They understood that this was just an innocent child, not understanding the nuances of this very adult topic and, of course, the controversy surrounding the very similar phrase, All Lives Matter.

But these students had no idea about any of that. It was truly just a friendly act of inclusion. And so Bibi's family really just wanted an apology for that. But the school and the principal's story kept changing. there was some denials that it had ever happened in the first place. And so that led to some internal complaints within the school itself, which ultimately led to the principal investigating himself and, of course, finding no wrongdoing. And so when there was no positive resolution through the internal school process,

the family proceeded to file a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. And what is your argument in that case? Well, the case is now on appeal. And the issues have narrowed substantially in that. And to back up real quick, the reason the case is on appeal is because the family brought essentially two constitutional claims. One was that punishing Bibi for this innocent drawing was itself a violation of her First Amendment right to free speech. And then very related to that, a claim that the punishment was also retaliation. in response to her exercising her First Amendment rights.

They're very similar claims, but those are the issues on appeal. And the reason that the case has been appealed essentially is because when the district court entered summary judgment in the school district's favor, essentially said that young elementary school students have no First Amendment rights, therefore there was no violation here. And that's, of course, a deeply troubling decision that bucks nearly 100 years' worth of Supreme Court precedent. And if allowed to stand, that, of course, risks the curtailment of significant speech rights for students throughout the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers essentially the entire Western United States. And, of course, stands as a precedent for other school districts around the country to look to to see what they could potentially get away with.

with the continuing encroachment of very adult topics into young students' education. Wow. And how do the parents of Bibi feel about the school overstepping its role by punishing their child for not adhering to the district's political leanings? And is B.B. still going to school in this district? Their parents were very upset. They, like the student she gave the drawing to, didn't know that the, these topics were being taught to their first grade children. They had needy's parents had expressly asked that she not be included if they were going to be teaching those topics because they felt that it was that their children just weren't ready for for that kind of topic and discussion.

And then to be essentially lied to about it by the school or gaslit, whether it was happening. Come to find out in deposition testimony in the case, not only had the teacher discussed this, but there was also apparently a poster prominently displayed in the school that the students saw every day that said Black Lives Matter, had a clenched fist. So very clearly the school was including this messaging. And then you can see in there just gross overreaction to the innocent, inclusive use of any life that they were teaching this through one viewpoint, which is the progressive accepted racial ideology viewpoint, and that's deeply troubling. And when this controversy became public, there wasn't much vocal support for Bibi or her family.

It was, in fact, quite the opposite, which ultimately led to the family just relocating entirely out of state because of the backlash over this that was just completely misplaced and deeply troubling. And so, you know, the case is very important, not just from a free speech standpoint to vindicate the rights of students to express themselves within the confines of the test that the Supreme Court has established, and that applies to the children of all ages, of course, but it also just shows you the dangers of what happens when one viewpoint, one ideology is forced in schools as orthodoxy, and when even an innocent child somehow missteps, the dangers of what can happen.

And so it's very important for the courts to push back and say that no, school officials are not to be deferred to in all circumstances, which is what the district court said, and to firmly reconfirm that students do have rights in these situations. Definitely. And what do you see happening in this case in the future? Well, I'm definitely optimistic of success on appeal. Like I said before, we have over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent on our side, saying that the district court was wrong. And he just focused so heavily on the age factor, essentially to the exclusion of everything else, including the evidence in this case, showing it would be one thing if there was some evidence that B.B.'s classmates,

understood the situation and was upset, thought she was being singled out for her race in a negative way, or if this drawing was disruptive to school and was causing issues amongst other classmates, that would be one thing. That's kind of traditionally, this goes back to the famous Tinker v. Des Moines case from the 1970s where students wore armed bands to protest the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court there said those students could not be suspended due to their retains. wearing of the armbands because there was no disruption at all. And here there's just no evidence that there was any disruption or that anyone was bothered in school by this drawing. And so because of that, B.B. could not have been punished. And so because of the strength of the evidence in this

case and existing court precedent, we're very confident that the court of appeals will correct the situation and reverse the district court and say that, no, no, that there are free speech rights for young elementary school students and that Bibi's rights in this case were violated. I see. And I wrote an article recently about this same district making plans to hide gender identity from students' parents. Knowing what you know about this free speech case, does that other incident surprise you?

Yes and no. California recently Governor Newsom signed a bill essentially authorizing school districts. districts throughout the state to do so. But what is surprising is that they seem to be, the school districts seem to be wanting to have it both ways. Here, in our case, they're saying that BB is too young to have First Amendment rights, but on the other hand, they would be old enough to have these other rights focused on, on gender.

It just, I don't see how they can have it. It can be a different outcome just depending on what the focus is. I think it's one or the other. And so I think that it's just deeply inconsistent, which just further goes to show that there is one kind of progressive orthodoxy at play here amongst this school district, if not public education at large in California. Absolutely. Thank you so much for discussing this with us today. Thank you for having me. That's all for today's episode.

Thank you so much for tuning in to my conversation with Caleb Trotter from Pacific Legal. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed, where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure you subscribe to The Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback. Thank you again for listening. Have a wonderful day and we'll be back with you all at 5 p.m. for some top news. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like,

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