Lovell

Sarah Lovell, a student at Mt. Carmel High School in the Poway Unified School District (“PUSD”), allegedly threatened Linda Suokko, a school guidance counselor, that she would shoot her if Suokko did not make changes to Lovell’s class schedule. Suokko filed a disciplinary report with school administrators, and the school suspended Lovell for three days.

Lovell denies that she threatened Suokko, and claims that she merely uttered a “figure of speech” under her breath while in Suok-ko’s office. Lovell and her parents discussed the incident with school officials and requested that the disciplinary report be removed from Lovell’s file. When the school and the PUSD refused to take any action, Lovell instituted this suit against the PUSD and several school officials. She claimed that, by punishing her as a result of her speech, the school violated her rights under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and the California Education Code. Furthermore, she claimed that she was denied procedural and substantive due process.

The district court rejected her due process claim, but found that the defendants did violate her First Amendment rights. Because she prevailed on one of…

concurring and dissenting:

I concur in the judgment of the court that Sarah Lovell has not proven her federal claim, but I do not believe the court is correct in analyzing Lovell’s federal and state claims by a single “threat” analysis.

Lovell’s federal claim is based on the First Amendment, which affords students in schools a right of expression limited by then-educational environment and accords appropriate deference to school officials in carrying out their educational mission. See Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 682-83 , 106 S.Ct. 3159, 3163-64 , 92 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986). Sarah Lovell sassed her guidance counsellor. It was within the school district’s discretion to find Lovell’s expression inappropriate for school discourse and to discipline her for it after a fair hearing. Id.

Lovell’s state claim, however, is based on California Education Code § 48950, which provides a high school student “the same right to exercise his or her right to free speech on campus as he or she enjoys when off campus.” Cal. Educ.Code § 48950 note (b). For this claim we must consider Lovell’s conduct as though it was “engaged in outside of the campus.” Id. § 48950(a). The…