School Board Gets a Lesson on Free Speech from the Eleventh

By John R. Byrne

Who knew school board meetings could get this intense? The Eleventh Circuit just issued an opinion holding that the Brevard County School Board's policies governing speech at school board meetings violated the First Amendment. The board had policies prohibiting "abusive," "personally directed," and "obsence" speech. The court said that while "abusive" and "obscene" speech could be restricted in principle, the school board had offered fuzzy definitions of the terms that would reach protected speech. According to the Court, "giving offense is a viewpoint" and "a restriction barring that viewpoint effectively requires 'happy talk,' permitting a speaker to give positive or benign comments, but not negative or even challenging one."

Judge Wilson dissented, in part. For much of his dissent, he offered examples of speech that the board actually allowed, his point being that it's not as though the board was out to muzzle any particular agenda. He also disagreed with the majority's ruling striking down the ban on "personally directed" speech. His point seems well taken here. It appears that the majority was overreading that restriction (Wilson pointed out that it only required a speaker to address their comments to specific board members/the board as a whole/the presiding officer, not that it banned a speaker from naming names). 

Anyway, on the off chance that you're speaking before the Brevard School Board anytime soon (or crafting speech policies for a limited public forum), a must read....

Happy Friday.

Moms for Liberty by John Byrne on Scribd