Alan Burch v. Brian H. Barker

I. OVERVIEW

In 1977, the Renton School District in Renton, Washington, adopted a policy requiring its high school students to submit to school officials for approval all student-written material before any such material could be distributed on school premises or at official school functions. The policy was directed at student writings that were not contained in official school publications.

On May 20, 1988, students at Lindbergh High School distributed copies of an unauthorized student-written newspaper called Bad Astra at a school-sponsored senior class barbecue on school grounds without submitting the material for predistribution review. In addition, a parent, the president of the Lindbergh High P.T.A., placed copies of the newspaper in faculty and staff mailboxes. The school principal reprimanded the students for violating the review policy, but did not find any particular passage or article objectionable.

The parents and the students filed this action in district court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that the predistribution review policy violated their right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the first and fourteenth amendments. The district court held that, with…