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Abstract

This case addresses the events that unfolded after a high school teacher displayed a Confederate flag in the classroom as a visual aid to instruction on the causes and effects of the Civil War. Although the curriculum specifically required students to learn the meaning and use of symbols and provided for the use of the flag, and the principals authorized its use, the teacher was subject to disciplinary action for the disruption that its display caused in the community at large. The situation implicates the First Amendment, collective bargaining, employment law, and raises important perspectives on professional leadership competencies as identified by the Interstate Leaders' Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards for administrative practice. The case is designed for use by principals and superintendents and can be used in courses addressing politics, policy, school-community relations, curriculum, and law.

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References

American Association of University Professors' Statement of Principles (1940). At http://www.higher-ed.org/resources/AAUP_1940stat.htm Stating in part that, “[Schools] are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition. Academic freedom is essential to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research. Academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning. It carries with it duties correlative with rights. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.”

Byrne, J. Peter (1989). Academic freedom: A special concern of the First Amendment. Yale Law Journal, 99, pp. 251-339.

Cockrel v. Shelby County School District, 270 F.3d 1036 (6th Cir. 2001) (finding teacher's classroom speech to be of public concern and constitutionally protected but remanding to determine whether the teacher would have been terminated had she not engaged in protected speech).

Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983) (finding that when a teacher speaks out as an employee upon matters of personal interest, the First Amendment is not implicated and the matter can be characterized as an employment dispute to be resolved internally).

Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 439 U.S. 410 (1979) (holding that teacher speech made in private conversation her principal concerning desegregation was a matter of public interest and was protected by the First Amendment).

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 278 (1988) (holding that school administrators may restrict school-sponsored speech).

Council of Chief State School Officers (1996). Interstate school leaders licensure consortium (ISLLC) standards for school leaders. Washington, DC: Author.

Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968) (protecting speech made under conditions in which the teacher speaks out on important matters of public interest in some kind of public forum if such speech is not outweighed by the government's interest in efficiency of operation).

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969) (holding that individual student symbolic speech made in school was protected under the First Amendment if not substantially or materially disruptive to the learning environment).

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Wirt, F. M. & Kirst, M. (1989). Schools in conflict: The politics of education. Richmond, CA: McCutran Pub. Corp.

Managing Public Controversy: What is the Lesson to be Learned?

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