Monteiro ex rel. Jane Doe v. Tempe Union High School District

Opinion by Judge REINHARDT; Concurrence by Judge BOOCHEVER.

More and more frequently we are faced with cases in which two fundamental constitutional rights appear to be at odds. At such times, the job of federal judges is particularly difficult. Here, we confront a case presenting some elements of such a clash. The setting is a freshman English class in Tempe, Arizona, and the competing interests are the First Amendment rights of high school students to receive information or ideas — even when contained in literary works that may in today’s world appear to have racist overtones — and the rights of those same students to receive a public education that neither fosters nor acquiesces in a racially hostile environment.

Jane Doe was a student in a freshman English class at McClintock High School, which is part of the defendant Tempe Unified Union High School District (“School District”). The class’ required reading included two classic literary works — the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, and the short story A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner. The complaint, brought on Doe’s behalf by her mother, Kathy Monteiro, alleged that each of these literary works…

concurring.

I concur in the majority’s opinion. I write separately, however, to emphasize that this case does not call upon us to evaluate a complaint alleging that a school board assigned as required reading books with overt messages of racial hatred, such as those promoting the views of the Aryan Nation, the Ku Klux Klan, or similar hate groups, and that teachers did not discuss the books. A complaint alleging that the adoption of such texts violated Title VI may well present different issues which we need not consider in this case.