In L.F. v. Lake Washington School District, published January 17, 2020, the 9th Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendant school district in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 lawsuit based on the plaintiff parent's First Amendment rights. The plaintiff allegedly engaged in a pattern of sending incessant e-mails to school staff accusing them of wrongdoing, making demands, and leveling insults, and also acted agressively and in an intimidating manne in face-to-face interactions concerning the district's decisions about his children, including the plaintiff's contention that his daughter would benefit from a plan under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The district imposed a communication plan, under which the parent's substantive communications with the district about his children's education would be limited to bi-weekly, in-person meetings with two administrators. The e-mail communicating the plan advised the plaintiff against e-mail or other communications with any district employees outside the bi-weekly meetings, as the employees would not respond to them. The plan did not apply in the event of an emergency, did not prevent him from pursuing administrative appeals, and did not bar him from attending school activities or accessing school records. The plaintiff was told he could appeal the communication plan to state court. He did not do so. When the district determined the plaintiff had violated the plan, it changed the frequency of meetings to monthly. The district court concluded that the communication plan did not violate the plaintiff's First Amendment rights.
The 9th Circuit agreed. The plan did not restrict the plaintiff's speech, because the only penalty for violating the plan was that the district employees would not respond to him. The plan therefore restricted the employees' speech, not the plaintiffs. Even if the plan could be deemed a restriction on the plaintiff's speech, it was a reasonable one. Under the circumstances, a parent's communication with the school about his children was a non-public forum. The regulation was therefore subject to limited First Amendment review: it needed only to be reasonable to comply with the First Amendment, so long as it was not an effort to suppress the speaker's activity based on disagreement with the speaker's message. These restrictions were reasonable, and were based on the manner in which the plaintiff communicated with the district–not the content of his speech. The plan was therefore a reasonable effort to manage a parent's relentless and unproductive communications with district staff.
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