A local Shiawassee County school board plans to hold a meeting as soon as Monday to rescind a decision it made Oct. 23 to order the removal of an extracurricular club display honoring gay history month.

“We have violated the First Amendment rights of the students and the Diversity Club,” Maureen Stanley, president of the Corunna Board of Education, said. “We limited their expression.”

The decision to remove the display came after a parent approached the board and complained about the display, Stanley said. Under the order, the display was to be removed and referred to the district’s Sexual Health Education Review Committee. That committee is a state mandated entity comprised of students, parents and clergy, which reviews curriculum and materials about sexual health in the district.

Under the law, the committee reviews curriculum, then presents a recommendation to the board about adoption of the curriculum and related presentations.

Stanley said the board moved on the situation, fearing the display had violated the committee’s responsibilities. However, attorneys for the district were not present in the meeting, although Stanley said their presence was standard operating procedure.

After the news broke of the board’s decision, they were contacted by the American Civil Liberties Union, Stanley said, and consulted with legal counsel. That consultation led the board to believe it had violated the rights of students and the club.

In retrospect, Stanley said, she wished the board had tabled the issue and sought legal advice.

“This has been an educational experience for us,” she said.

In an interview Tuesday before the board announced its plans to rescind the motion, Superintendent Mark Miller said, “I want to make sure this is protecting everybody’s rights.”

Stanley said when the board rescinds the order to remove the display, it will also cancel its referral to the district’s sexual health committee.

Classic conflict of First Amendment issues

Laying just beneath the surface of the decision is a tension between the First Amendment and schools. This battle often surfaces when public school districts attempt to force religious beliefs on students, or attempt to stop the formation of clubs designed to allow access to students to Bible clubs or gay-straight alliances, for example.

In an e-mail Wednesday, Frank Ravitch, a First Amendment scholar at Michigan State University’s law school, applauded the move by the Corunna school officials to rescind their actions.

“The School Board should be commended for recognizing that it violated the Free Speech Clause and for taking action to rectify the situation. This is an excellent result for a decision that could have cost the board a lot of time and money to defend, and which it would most likely have lost in the end. Kudos to the Corunna School Board, and the students for upholding this nation’s deeply cherished rights to free speech.”

In a phone interview Tuesday, Ravitch said the situation was a classic case of First Amendment tensions.

“It’s a classic example of a heckler’s veto,” Ravitch said. “It’s a clear case of viewpoint discrimination.”

Ravitch explained that when school districts allow for the creation of extra-curricular clubs, such as the Diversity Club, it creates a limited public forum, requiring them to treat all such groups equally regardless of the viewpoint the group might express.

In this case, the display consisted of pictures of nine gay Americans, including actor Neil Patrick Harris. The display’s pictures had no other information attached to them. Both Miller and Stanley said they had not seen anything wrong with the display, but Stanley did say she wished the poster had some educational component to it.

Some parents, however, were concerned.

“One can respect the views of the concerned parents in this case,” Ravitch said, “without suggesting that they have a right to censor speech of students that they disagree with. That’s why heckler’s vetoes are so troubling. It suggests that we don’t have the respect for opposing viewpoints to let them be out there in the free speech world.”

And that silencing, Ravitch says, has a “double-whammy” effect on speech in the district.

Ravitch said the move by the school board sends a mixed message to the school community.

“It’s inherently chilling to the LGBT community,” he says. “But creates even bigger issues by chilling dissenting viewpoints. It says, ‘we’re going to give into complaints.’”

Eliza Byard, executive director of the national group Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network, said Tuesday she was very worried about the message the board move sent to students, even after the announcement the decision would be rescinded.

In an e-mail Wednesday, Byard wrote: “We thank the school board for recognizing the damage its decision has done to creating an educational environment where difference is valued and respected.”

At the same time, Byard said, she hoped the board would consider the importance of encouraging diversity in educational settings, saying, “While the clear violations of the law stopped them short, the board members should also be taken aback by the educational impoverishment of a curriculum that erases facets of our common history and the reality of life in a diverse society.”