A parent [Plaintiff], whose daughter played on the high school's varsity girls basketball team, was banned from attending athletic events at the high school* filed a lawsuit against the School District and various school district officials [School District] alleging that School District violated his First Amendment rights, right of assembly, and "retaliation". The jury found for the School District and the federal district court dismissed Plaintiff's action.
Plaintiff appealed, contending that the District Court erred in (1) denying his Rule 50(b) motion with respect to his right of assembly claim, (2) dismissing his Monell claim against School District on School District's motion for summary judgment, and (3) granting the School District’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss his Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process claim.
Addressing Plaintiff's Right of Assembly claims, the Circuit Court, noting it "reviews a district court’s decision on a Rule 50(b) motion de novo, “considering the evidence in the light most favorable to party against whom the motion was made and ... giv[ing] that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences that the jury might have drawn in [its] favor from the evidence.”
The court then observed that here "the jury reasonably concluded that [School District] did not violate [Plaintiff's] right of assembly by banning him from the high school’s athletic events. Although, said the court "The right of peaceable assembly is a right cognate to those of free speech and free press and is equally fundamental", citing Johnson v. Perry, 8594 F.3d 156, "[n]othing in the Constitution requires the Government freely to grant access to all who wish to exercise their right to free speech on every type of Government property without regard to the nature of the property or to the disruption that might be caused by the speaker’s activities.”
The Circuit Court said it has "recognized that school property becomes a limited public forum during school-sponsored athletic events, which 'encourage' attendees to engage in 'expressive activity' such as 'chanting and cheering for whichever team they favor' that schools 'may regulate access to such limited public fora' so long as [their restrictions] are reasonable and viewpoint neutral."
With respect to the District Court’s grant of summary judgment against Plaintiff on his §1983 claim against the School District under color of Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, the Circuit Court explained that, as relevant here, Plaintiff was required to show that a government employee violated his federal rights “pursuant to official municipal policy,” and Plaintiff had "not demonstrated that a government employee violated his federal rights."
* The Circuit Court's decision reports the trial record established Plaintiff, without permission or authorization, "entered the high school after hours through a locked side door, waited outside of the girls’ locker room for students on the varsity girls basketball team to finish practice, gathered several of those students in the cafeteria to discuss concerns about their coach and a potential boycott of an upcoming game, and hugged at least one student who was not his daughter."
Click HERE to access the Second Circuit's decision posted on the Internet.
See, also, Decisions of the Commissioner of Education Decision 18,296, in which the genesis of the appeal to the Commissioner was a School Superintendent's prohibiting a parent [Petitioner] from accessing school property based on a faculty advisor's statement that a student at a music rehearsal told him that Petitioner’s “actions caused her to feel uncomfortable.” The Commissioner dismissed the appeal as moot without addressing the merits of the appeal based on the Superintendent's having informed the Petitioner that "the directive would be rescinded "as of June 30, 2023". The Commissioner's decision is posted on the Internet at https://www.counsel.nysed.gov/Decisions/volume62/d18296.