Public school officials at Huron High School in Wayne County, Mich., did not violate the First Amendment rights of a student accused of making a threat to his school, U.S. District Judge Gershwin A. Drain has ruled.
In December 2021, while in 9th grade, a student allegedly referred to a recent nearby school shooting in a menacing way. There had been a school shooting on Nov. 30, 2021, at Oxford High School in which a student shot and killed four other students and wounded seven others. The student accused of making a threat was subsequently tried and acquitted in a bench trial of any criminal charges, which was characterized in court documents as “an exoneration.”
Separate from the prosecution, the student’s mother filed a lawsuit on his behalf, alleging seven different causes of action, including a First Amendment claim. As to the First Amendment claim, the school officials contended that the student did not engage in protected speech if he spoke about shooting up the school. They also argued that they were entitled to qualified immunity – a legal doctrine that protects individual public-employee defendants from liability unless they violate clearly established law.
Drain applied the “substantial disruption” test from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1969 decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Under the Tinker standard, public school officials do not violate a student’s First Amendment rights if they can reasonably forecast that the student’s speech will cause a substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.
“Here, the Court finds the School District Defendants reasonably believed (the student’s) statement could substantially disrupt Huron High School’s activities,” Drain wrote in his Jan. 31, 2025, opinion. The student ” made the statement at issue just eight days after the Oxford High School shooting. In the aftermath of this shooting, schools—especially in Michigan—were justifiably sensitive to threats or comments suggesting violence.”
Drain concluded that it was “reasonable for the School District Defendants to believe D.R.’s statement had the potential to substantially disrupt Huron High School’s activities.”
David L. Hudson Jr. teaches First Amendment law and constitutional law classes at Belmont University College of Law. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of more than 50 books, including The Constitution Explained: A Guide for Every American (Visible Ink Press, 2022) and The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech (Thomson Reuters, 2012).
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