LaVine ex rel. LaVine v. Blaine School District

This case has its genesis in a high school student’s poem, which led to his temporary, emergency expulsion from school. It arises against a backdrop of tragic school shootings, occurring both before and after the events at issue here, and requires us to evaluate through a constitutional prism the actions school officials took to address what they perceived was the student’s implied threat of violent harm to himself and others. Given the knowledge the shootings at Columbine, Thurston and Santee high schools, among others, have imparted about the potential for school violence (as rare as these incidents may be when taken in context), we must take care when evaluating a student’s First Amendment right of free expression against school officials’ need to provide a safe school environment not to overreact in favor of either. Schools must be safe, but they are educational institutions after all, and speech— including creative writing and poetry — is an essential part of the educational fabric. Although this is a close case in retrospect, we conclude that when the school officials expelled James LaVine they acted with sufficient justification and within constitutional limits, not to…