In the interests of safety and order in the schools, a federal appeals court dismissed a Virginia reporter’s claim that his First Amendment rights were violated when school authorities barred him from entering school grounds. -DB
Richmond Times-Dispatch
May 15, 2009
By Frank Green
A federal appeals court yesterday ordered a suit filed by a newspaper publisher against the Buchanan County School Board to be dismissed.
The publisher had alleged the board violated his First Amendment rights.
In 2006, the School Board voted to ban Earl F. Cole, publisher of The Voice newspaper, from school property except to attend board meetings. The action was taken after he published stories critical of some of the board members.
Cole’s suit alleged that the School Board was restricting his ability to cover the news in retaliation for the negative stories.
U.S. District Judge James P. Jones turned down the board’s request to dismiss Cole’s suit before trial, ruling that “a reasonable School Board member . . . would have known that it was unlawful to bar a reporter from school grounds in retaliation for publishing critical articles.”
The board appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which yesterday sided with the School Board and ordered Jones to dismiss the suit, ruling the board had immunity.
“Generally, government officials performing discretionary functions are granted qualified immunity and are ‘shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights,'” yesterday’s opinion stated.
“In carrying out its mandate to promote safety and order . . . a school board has broad authority to restrict access to school grounds,” the judges wrote.
The 16-page opinion noted that Cole, among other things, had entered an elementary school and taken photos during the school day without reporting to the principal’s office, and on another occasion, several parents complained he was on school grounds with a camera.
The appeals court held the appropriate inquiry for Jones was not whether a reasonable school board member would have known it was unlawful to retaliate against a critical member of the press, but whether a reasonable member could have believed banning Cole was lawful.
“A reasonable board member may well have believed it was his or her duty to ban Cole from school grounds in order to protect both the safety of the students and the integrity of the educational process,” the judges wrote.
Cole’s lawyer, Michael A. Bragg of Abingdon, said through an employee yesterday that he needed to speak with his client about the ruling before commenting.
Copyright 2009 Richmond Times-Dispatch