Legal News

Girl's Suit Over 'N-word' Reading is Free Speech Chiller

By Matthew Heller, Editor

First Amendment freedoms should trump the sensitivities of an African-American girl who claims a fifth-grade teacher racially harassed her by reading aloud passages from a book about slavery that included the N-word.

The civil rights lawsuit filed by Jala Petree of Macomb County, Mich., evokes past cases against school boards that have banned books such as ?The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? because some parents found their content racially offensive. Petree isn't asking for any book-banning but the effect of his suit, if successful, would be just as chilling.

According to the complaint, Jala's fifth-grade teacher at Margaret Black Elementary ?chose to present literature? to the class by reading aloud from ?From Slave Ship to Freedom Road,? a picture book by Julius Lester that traces the 250-year journey from the first slave ships taking Africans from their homes to the Civil War and emancipation.

The reading allegedly included excerpts from the book in which characters, describing the buying and selling of slaves, use the word ?nigger? no fewer than six times.

The suit seeks at least $25,000 in damages, alleging Warren Consolidated Schools violated Jala's right to be free of discrimination under Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her ?through outrageous statements to and about Plaintiff, relating to Plaintiff's race.?

The Petree family apparently sued after their lawyer, Scott E. Combs of Novi, Mich., was unable to ?get answers and an explanation? from the school. ?This could have been nipped in the bud right away, but the family got pushed aside,? he told The Detroit News.

But First Amendment precedent suggests the courts will nip the suit in the bud.

In Board of Educ., Island Trees Union Free Sch. Dist. v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students' right of access to information was violated when school officials removed books including Richard Wright's classic ?Black Boy? from a school library because of their content.

Island Trees involved an action taken by a school board but in Monteiro v. Tempe Union High Sch. Dist., 158 F.3d 1022 (1998), the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a suit by a parent alleging the required reading of ?Huck Finn? injured an African-American student because the book ?contains repeated use of the profane, insulting and racially derogatory term 'nigger.'?

?[P]ermitting lawsuits against school districts on the basis of the content of literary works to proceed past the complaint stage could have a significant chilling effect on a school district's willingness to assign books with themes, characters, snippets of dialogue, or words that might offend the sensibilities of any number of persons or groups,? the court said.

Jala Petree could make an issue out of hearing her teacher say ?nigger? in class rather than reading the word herself as part of a mandatory class assignment. But there is no allegation in her suit that ?Slave Ship? conveys ?overt messages of racial hatred? or that the teacher expressed any racial animus by reading from it.

By Matthew Heller
On Point

Full post as published by On Point News on November 16, 2010 (boomark / email).