CA first grader punished for "innocent" and "well intentioned" drawing

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** CPC files amicus brief defending free speech rights of California students and teachers
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Dear John,

California Policy Center filed an amicus curiae brief ([link removed]) Monday in support of the First Amendment rights of a California first grader who was punished by her school after she drew a picture containing the words “Black Lives Mater [sic]… any life.” The school disciplined the student by depriving her of recess for two weeks and prohibiting her from drawing.

Although a district court characterized the girl’s artwork as “innocent” and “well intentioned,” the judge ruled that the drawing was not protected speech and upheld the school’s punishment. The lawsuit against Capistrano Unified School District has now been appealed ([link removed]) to the Ninth Circuit by our allies at Pacific Legal Foundation.

“This case is the predictable result of the infusion of racial ideology into California public schools,” said California Policy Center (CPC) attorney Julie Hamill, who filed the amicus brief on behalf of CPC and Californians for Equal Rights Foundation. “Sadly, the free speech rights of students and teachers are being sacrificed on the altar of Leftist politics.”

Unbelievably, the district court in the case cited The New York Times, which deemed a different phrase—“All Lives Matter”—offensive, to support its assertion that the first grader’s speech was not protected. The court opined that “teachers are far better equipped than federal courts at identifying when speech crosses the line from harmless schoolyard banter to impermissible harassment.”

As Hamill explains in the brief: “The district court has thus established a new standard for speech in school, one in which a government official may penalize the ‘innocent’ and ‘well-intentioned’ speech of a child if he alone determines that the child has diverged from an orthodoxy defined by a New York Times article.”

Hamill writes, “[w]ithout robust First Amendment protections, students, teachers and administrators are compelled to think and speak in compliance with a prescribed orthodoxy on racial and social justice issues, lest they risk punishment, even termination.”

Racial ideology has become a dominant theme in California public education. In 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB101 into law, making ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement and mandating it follow the controversial California Department of Education’s Model Curriculum for Ethnic Studies (“ESMC”), which contains such buzzwords as “transformative resistance,” “the four I’s of oppression,” and “counter v. dominant narrative.”

However, the CDE encourages ethnic studies in elementary school in ESMC Chapter 3, declaring that “[u]nderstanding how race and ethnicity impacts [SIC] society should be an essential core component of every students’ K–12 education experience.”

In addition, the California Teachers Association has become increasingly focused on racial justice activism in schools.

The result is a dangerous orthodoxy in California’s government schools. The amicus brief cites the following examples:

— In Hayward, elementary school teacher Tiger Craven-Neely was suspended for publicly questioning Glassbrook Elementary’s “Woke Kindergarten” program, including its use of the phrase “so-called United States,” lessons on Woke Kindergarten’s website offering “Lil’ Comrade Convos,” and positing a world without police, money or landlords.

— Third graders from Cupertino participated in a math class where they “deconstructed” their racial and social identities based on “power and privilege.” Their teacher explained that the students live in a “dominant culture” of “white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],” who “created and maintained” this culture in order “to hold power and stay in power.”

— San Diego Unified School District hired critical race theorist Bettina Love to provide the keynote address at the district’s Principal Institute and district-wide training on how to “challenge the oppressive practices that live within the systems and structures of school organizations.” Teachers subsequently underwent “white privilege” training sessions.

“When the government imposes a political viewpoint in its public schools, cancel culture operates to turn that viewpoint into a government-imposed orthodoxy, which in turn suppresses the speech of students who dare to digress from that orthodoxy,” Hamill writes. “The need to protect speech that deviates from the orthodoxy is particularly acute when the subject is race, because public schools are prohibited from discriminating on that ground.”

“The importance of protecting free expression to counter the dangers of prescribed orthodoxy cannot be overstated, especially in a time of rampant inculcation of K-12 students in social justice activism.”

Read CPC's amicus brief filed in B.B. v. Capistrano Unified School District, et al here ([link removed]) .
SUPPORT CPC ([link removed])
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** Radio Free California #345: Sex? Yes, Please!
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There was a time when “sex” meant “man” or “woman” — and when federal Title IX was seen as a victory for women, and especially female athletes. CPC attorney Julie Hamill talks with attorney Kimberly Hermann about the meaning of Biden’s Title IX court losses for parents of California school kids. And, CPC Research Manager Sheridan Swanson explains the coming wave of local sales tax hikes. Plus, CPC visiting fellow Marc Joffe examines November’s $20 billion solution to the problem of Bay Area mass transit. Listen now. ([link removed])

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