Blog 10

Monday

            After twelve hours, five counties, two Native American reservations, and one double hamburger, Monday's meetings (and informal tour of previously-unseen parts of Arizona) revealed the scope of our state and the unexpected adventures of an attorney's job.

            Traveling up the windy roads carved from the towering red-ocher walls of the scenic Salt River Canyon and cruising past plains of livestock on US Highway 60 for 5 hours, my father and I eventually reached the quaint town of St. Johns in Apache County. This tiny town--missing a bank, Walmart, or even a McDonalds--nestled in the green, alpine hills of northern Arizona posed a stark, yet refreshing contrast from our origin in the suburban setting of Scottsdale in the dry Sonoran Desert.

            At the Apache County Sheriff's Office, we shook hands with the deputy sheriff involved in a motor vehicle accident in his patrol car (FYI: the sheriff works for the County, the police work for the City). My father is the defense attorney representing Apache County in this lawsuit. The driver of the other vehicle alleges that the deputy sheriff made an unsafe U-turn in front of her, causing her to hit the rear of his patrol vehicle.  

            In order to get a better understanding of how the accident occurred, we followed the deputy to the accident scene. He had never seen the accident report prepared by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, who investigated the accident, and was shocked by its inaccuracies. Even the description of the property damage to the deputy sheriff's car was incorrect. Accident reports consist of a general information page about the accident, a narrative, a crash diagram, and a vehicle damage report.

            As we watched, the officer reconstructed the accident, driving past us, turning on his lights, and then u-turning. Returning to the sheriff's office, the deputy provided us with his personal memo written at the time of the accident, which was consistent with his reconstruction of the accident.

            Next, my father held a roundtable discussion back at the sheriff's office on how to make sense of the accident. Accidents always come down to split seconds. Relying on his knowledge from other cases of reasonable perception and reaction times, my father believed that if the deputy had executed a three-point turn, then more time would have been required. If the plaintiff was traveling at 60 mph in the 65 mph zone, she had about 1.5 seconds to produce a reaction.

            Since the deputy was about to pursue a vehicle traveling over 80 miles an hour in the opposite direction, the plaintiff should have observed that the deputy was preparing to make a U-turn in front of her. If the plaintiff was following at a safe distance, then it would have taken the deputy approximately four seconds for his vehicle to have been in the position where it would have sustained the physical damage that it did. Consequently, the plaintiff should have seen potential danger. While not in the actual report, the deputy's memo stated that the DPS officer informed him that the plaintiff admitted that she had seen the deputy turn on his emergency lights. Therefore, the plaintiff should have known that something was happening along this stretch of rural highway, but she apparently did nothing to react to the warning.

            While many facts need to be discovered and evaluated, what we learned at the scene with the deputy is far more favorable than the accident report, which is littered with mistakes--listing the deputy's patrol car as being owned Apache Wood Product as an example.

            Next, we drove for approximately one hour to the County seat of Navajo County in Holbrook for another hearing on a minor's settlement. This minor settlement featured a slight difference from the norm; the settlement would not be placed in a restrict account. This time, the judge raised the issue of why not--unlike our past several hearings where we had been anticipating the question which was never raised by the judges. To answer, my father replied that it was unnecessary under the applicable statutes, and the judge agreed and approved the settlement.

            In a role reversal, the defendants did teach my defense attorney father and I a new defense trick of two. While preparing the minor and her mother for her testimony, at which her father was present, we learned that the mother is an owner of a martial arts studio, and the father was a cage fighter who was raised in New York, and then lived in South Phoenix. They instructed us two simple, but devastating, defense moves. The mother demonstrated how if you are confronted by a larger assailant, then you should stomp on his foot, whack the back of his knee, which brings the assailant to his knees while you flee. The father, on the other hand, impressed us with his technique of blocking the arms of an opponent and cupping your hands to whack his ears, dropping him to his knees in a perfect position for you to knee him in the forehead. That defense in a cage fight seems a little more exciting than a defense in a courtroom.

            Revealing that the legal community in Arizona is fairly small compared to the size of our state, my father ran across an attorney he knew, even in this remote location. Stopping by a mom-and-pop old diner in Holbrook for lunch, the friendly service reinforced the old-fashioned hospitality of this remote Eastern part of our state.

            Driving four hours home, puffy white clouds punctuating alpine forest gradually and gracefully gave way to saguaros standing sentinel against desert sandstone vistas. This topographic diversity whizzed by our window as we discussed the deputy's accident in detail and agreed that an accident reconstructionist needed to be retained in order to support our position.

            As the sunset cast shadows across the hills, I recollected how the sun was also setting on my last week of my SRP. Just like our full day today, shadowing my father exposed me to the reality of practicing law and left me eager to experience more.

Research

            My survey of public high school student publication faculty advisers in Arizona conducted electronically through an anonymous online survey using SurveyMonkey indicates that student journalists and faculty advisers practice self-censorship.

            Of the 83 high school faculty advisers who were emailed the survey on March 3, 2015, 26 advisers responded to 11 survey questions inquiring about the existence and exercise of prior review and encounters with censorship of student publications at their respective high schools. A substantial amount of advisers (39.13 percent) revealed that they or their student journalists had been told by school officials not to publish or air content to which they objected. Although thirty percent of advisers work at schools with a policy expressly designating its student publications as public forums, the majority, 44 percent of advisers, stated that a school official routinely reviews content before publication or airing. In this regard, about 37 percent of advisers reported that someone other than themselves or the student editors is the final authority for approving the content of student publications. Of these, 29.17 percent named the school principal as the final arbitrator of content; 8.33 percent listed the school district superintendent.

            More alarmingly, 13.64 percent of advisers alleged that school officials have threatened their position or job based upon the content of a student publication.

            Not surprisingly, in the speech-restrictive climate created by prior review, advisors shared that both they and their students had experienced self-censorship. 65.22 percent decided against publishing or airing content on the grounds that they believed school officials would censor it.

            Quantifying the rate of incidences of school publication censorship is difficult because most conflicts go unreported and are not adjudicated. The busy lives of students crammed with extra curriculars and SAT preparation, combines with looming graduation of senior editors to dissuade most students from pursuing a multi-year legal battle against censorship. Nevertheless, the survey presents anecdotal evidence that censorship occurs frequently in Arizona. The survey targeted respondents in public high schools in every Arizona county with established student publications. All email addresses of faculty advisers were personally confirmed over the phone with each school's staff.

            Eighty-four percent of the respondents hailed from schools with over 1,000 students: 44 percent contained between 1,000 and 2,000 students, and 40 percent had more than 2,000 students. At the other end of the size spectrum, 8 percent of respondents worked at schools with less than 500 students, and an equal amount, 8 percent, worked at schools with 500 to 1,000 students. Consequently, the results represent a random sampling of student publication faculty advisers statewide, rendering the survey both valid and reliable.

            Most student faculty media advisers wear many hats: supervising both online and print newspapers, yearbooks, television broadcast programs, and literally magazines. The majority of respondents advised newspapers and yearbooks.

            Considering that 70 percent of faculty advisers lead student publications that are not designated public forums, the prevalence of self-censorship in Arizona is not surprising. While only 30.43 percent of respondents stated that their school has a policy that requires prior review of content before distributing student publications, 42.86 percent report that school policy allows prior restraint to prevent distribution. This ambivalence suggests that school officials do not require faculty advisers to turn over the student publications to receive permission to publish, but, in practice, the school retains a veto power to censor content and prevent distribution.

            Likewise, while 44 percent of faculty advisers follow a protocol which routinely submits publications for review to a school official, only 29 percent believe that the practice is mandatory. This confusion on the part of faculty advisers mirrors the split in lower courts' interpretation of Hazelwood's ambiguous standard. Even though the faculty's perceptions are contrary to the blanket assertion of a school's prior review authority contained in the Arizona School Board Association Manuals distributed by the Arizona School Board Association, composed of more than 240 governing boards, which represent almost one million Arizona students. If the faculty do not know what their rights are regarding prior review of student speech, then how can student journalists?

            Moreover, my survey, while admittedly on a much smaller scale with only 26 respondents, consistently mirrors the findings of a national 2013 Journalist Educational Association Survey.  However, the student press in Arizona practices almost double the amount of self-censorship than that reported in the national survey.

High School Administrative Policy in Arizona

The majority of school districts in Arizona have adopted School Board Association manuals with administrative regulations concerning student publications, which are similarly worded to the Hazelwood-like provision for prior review. For example, the Cave Creek School District's regulation typifies the use of prior review by a principal in most high schools:

"Students shall be required to submit publications to the principal for approval prior to distribution."

            However, some individual school districts elaborate on this general paradigm. Sunnyside Unified School District further explicates the principal's exercise of prior review by adding, "The principal has a right to object to the style or content of any material as long as the objection is reasonably related to a legitimate pedagogical concern," quoting verbatim the Hazelwood standard of review.  Nevertheless, it does also include an appeal process. Glendale Unified School District expounds upon its policy of prior review for five pages, detailing the qualities of a school newspaper--financed by the district, not a private enterprise, the newspaper's "major function...is to serve the school," stating that the Governing Board is held directly responsible for the newspaper. It details how "high school students need the guidance and direction of their adviser," to be "exceedingly careful concerning the accuracy and truth of the material, as well as the objectivity," especially political neutrality. Glendale further articulates the impermissibility of publishing content which, echoing the Tinker standard, substantially and materially interferences with normal classroom activity or school function, or which is obscene or libelous. Furthermore, Glendale's regulation provides a three-level procedure for review of an article in which review has been requested: the principal, the Superintendent, and the Governing Board. 

            Of course, these administrative regulations merely provide a constitutional floor for the First Amendment rights of student journalists. Several high school newspapers, notably those published online, have increased their constitutional protection by expressly declaring themselves to be public forums.

            Within the Glendale Unified School District just mentioned above, Thunderbird High School's The Challenge is a self-designated public forum. You may recall The Challenge from my previous post on the victory of student editor Hillyard against school censorship on an addition of the newspaper in 2010. IF you recall further that the school still practices prior review, highlighting how a written school policy is not a strong enough shield against school censorship in the post-Hazelwood era; only a state statute provides constitutional security.

            Likewise, the Shield and Crown, an online student publication of Kofa High School in Yuma, maintains that it is "established as an open forum" that "will not be restrained by school officials prior to publication or distribution," claiming that the student editorial board solely determines content and disclaiming that the "material may not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Kofa School officials." Since this newspaper is published weekly by Journalism students, one can infer that the students and their teacher are more knowledgeable about censorship and have taken this step to protect their editorial powers. In this regard, each online addition further elaborates that it will publish only speech that is legally protected and will not cause a Tinker-like material disruption of school activities. The student editors expressly assume "complete legal responsibility for the content."

            Likewise, student Journalists at Desert Mountain have declared that their online newspaper, the "Wolf's Print," to be "an open forum of public expression," "committed to..serving as a public forum."

            On the other hand, Valley Vista High School's Storm Chaser labels itself "a limited open forum," with "all online content..determined by student editors." However, the circuit courts have been split regarding whether limited open forums receive the heightened security of a public forum (Dean v. Utica, 345 F. Supp. 2d 799 (E.D. Mich. 2004)) or the lesser protection of a non-public forum (Ochshorn v. Ithaca City Sch. Dist., 132 S. Ct. 422  (2011)). Consequently, Valley Vista High School's online newspaper remains extremely vulnerable to Hazelwood's restrictions on speech, despite its assertion of a limited public forum.

            Several other online student publications appear even more lost in the constitutional quagmire created by Hazelwood: Corona Del Sol High School's newspaper asserts that "opinions represented within are solely those of the individual writers," rather than the administration or district, and University High School proclaims that The Perspective is a "student-run" newspaper. These vague attempts to assert student editorial control would not pass mustard under Hazelwood; the school's imprimatur--name and funding--would trump the newspaper's policy.

Recent examples of student publication censorship in Arizona

            While the odds seem stacked against student journalists since Hazelwood, schools do not have unfettered discretion to censor content. While courts have granted schools greater latitude in their judgment of what constitutes a "legitimate pedagogical concern," the school's authority is not unlimited. Hazelwood is not carte blanche deference to principles personal objections.

            Recent censorship controversies in Arizona highlight how high school students do not enjoy a uniform standard of First Amendment protection across the state. Incidents in high schools in Tucson and Globe signal the heavy-handed limitations on student expression; a nationally-covered story about Mesa High School's lack of censorship of a yearbook illustrates the constitutional courage to publish student-produced content.  

            In 2014, the principal of Sabino High School in Tucson censored 13 quotes in over 800 yearbooks prior to distribution by crudely covering the text with black tape. Quotes included "Every Mexican needs a White best friend!" and "Come getcha' some--Turtle Man." Since Arizona lacks a student press freedom statute, Hazelwood governs the yearbook, permitting officials to censor content for a "legitimate pedagogical concern," a standard that requires more than the principal's personal objection--there must be poor grammar, obscenity, disruption, etc. While the school never adopted a public forum policy to protect student expression, the principal neglected to review the yearbook prior to printing. Moreover, some members of the Tucson Unified School Board regretted the principal's censorship, admitting that the school acted inappropriately. The students were not punished; however, the school disciplined the yearbook teacher for not presenting a copy to the administration for prior review or restraint. This swirling eddy of constitutional confusion highlights how Hazelwood does not extend clear guidance to school officials, students, or courts ("Censored Yearbook Quotes Raised Questions of Prior Review at Tucson High School." - Student Press Law Center.Web. 1 Nov. 2014).

            Globe's high school student newspaper The Papoose unsuccessfully waged two censorship battles in 2008. After its printing but before its distribution, the principal seized all 700 copies of the paper because of two articles which he deemed inappropriate. He first objected to an editorial describing a "sullen and gloomy atmosphere" in the halls and unmotivated students and teachers. The principal considered the newspaper to be a public relations vehicle for the school. Therefore, he was offended by the negative image presented in the article. Secondly, the principal took umbrage at the title of an article "Whudafxup with that?" critical of the school's Channel One Broadcasting ads for TRUTH, a campaign against tobacco use. Ironically, every morning, the school aired on its mandatorily-watched television programming the TRUTH ad displaying the word "Whudafxup." In an all-too-familiar scenario, the students never legally pressed their objection to the censorship because they were graduating--a common occurrence which weakens students' positions against school officials.

            As I mentioned in a previous post, Globe high school also confiscated an entire edition because of one hookah article, despite the newspapers' clear disclaimer that the views of the authors do not reflect those of the administration and assertion of public forum status. 

Blog 9

            After a hiatus of a few weeks, I hit the road again, bookending my week by heading south to Casa Grande for a 10-hour marathon of depositions on Monday and then trying to crack holes in the seemingly Teflon-coated testimony of a plaintiff back in Phoenix on Friday. Observing the depositions inadvertently highlighted many of the concepts I had been studying for my mock AP Psychology that week: the practice of law is much more than knowing the law.

Monday

            Our first destination of the week was Casa Grande, a large town about an hour south of Phoenix. After shaking hands with the co-defendant and the plaintiffs' attorneys, we settled down in the conference room for a long day of deposing the five plaintiffs. My father represented Pinal County in the case, and the codefendant represented the City of Casa Grande.

            The case featured two fronts: the liability issue and the damages issue. The liability issue focused on who was responsible for the single-vehicle motor vehicle accident on a dirt road that resulted in the vehicle, holding all five plaintiffs, allegedly hitting a pothole and rolling.

            Of course, the two defendants denied any liability for the accident, but there was some evidence that there was a pothole in the road. Surprisingly, two days before the plaintiffs' accident, another single-vehicle roll-over accident occurred along the same dirt road. The City denied any notice--actual or constructive--of the pothole, claiming that Pinal County did not advise the City of the prior accident. Notice can be actual--a person receives a written paper or a telephone call informing them of a matter--or constructive--a reasonable person should have known of the matter of interest to them. Have you ever seen those little signs posted on empty lots announcing public notice of impending construction of homes? That is constructive notice. Another common example of constructive notice is those often-ignored pages of public notices published in eye-crampingly tiny print in the daily newspaper. Considered a legal fiction, constructive notice will be deemed sufficient in certain circumstances, even in the absence of actual notice.

            The damages issues pivoted on the plaintiffs' testimony and medical records.

            The driver of the vehicle--the mother--suffered the most claimed serious injuries, with claims of ongoing pain in the neck, lower back, and left arm, along with serious headaches and an intense paranoia of driving, which she believes is her most significant injury. Her deposition was by far the longest and toughest--she cried continuously for almost three hours. Once the codefendant finished his questioning, my father attempted to project a more sincere concern in his voice to get more clarification on her anxiety issues. The concern in his voice appeared to comfort the mother, who then provided more details on her paranoia.

            The father--the front-seat passenger in the accident--initially claimed he also received serious injuries, but his statements appeared more suspect than his wife's testimony regarding injuries. Additionally, he forgot to state that he had received chiropractic treatment, only to "remember" spontaneously after a short break with his attorney. Overall, he appeared overdramatic and seemed overreaching regarding his claims to be very believable.

            Finally, the three children--all riding in the backseat--were deposed. Both the 19-year-old and 16-year-old daughter indirectly impeached the parents' claims that the family was falling apart, but the 10-year-old somewhat spoiled the what was established through the statements of the two older siblings by stating that the marital relationship of her parents did seem strained and her mother not only suffered from anxiety when driving, but also experienced intense headaches.

Friday

            I returned to home base at the office for a deposition related to a car accident at a highway intersection. The plaintiff took a left turn off the highway ramp onto the street when my father's client ran into the side of her car. Both claimed to have had a green light. The plaintiff hit her knee on the steering wheel during the collision, causing her uncomfortable knee pain that she claims lingers to the present day. The plaintiff visited an urgent care on the day of the accident due to her knee pain and soon after received an x-ray from a primary care physician. However, she did not receive any physical therapy for the next 80 days and the plaintiff failed to produce a strong argument to explain this gap.

            The defendant's client was not present, but had claimed earlier that both he and his wife, who is now divorcing him, that he had a green light when the accident occurred.

            The accident occurred over two years ago, but the 30-year-old plaintiff still complains of ongoing knee pain. An orthopedic surgeon examined her knee and stated that it was a bone bruise that would heel in 18 months, but it supposedly remains unhealed and in pain. When asked what she plans to do next, the plaintiff responded that she plans to live with the dull pain inside her knee because she works a desk job, minimizing the discomfort.  

            With the deposition complete, my father moved into an informal settlement conference with the plaintiff's attorney. Surprisingly, the plaintiff's attorney tipped his hand, hinting that he would settle for half my father's client's policy; his primary reason being the liability issue--he felt her damages were strongly supported. My father kept his poker face, nonchalantly explaining that he would have to see if the adjustor would agree. On the other hand, the plaintiff herself  seemed wary of accepting the settlement proposed by her attorney; however, she tentatively agreed. 

Blog 8

          This week, I returned to cases encountered during prior weeks. Experiencing the progress of a case through its various stages revealed the different trajectories that a case can take.

Tuesday      
                                                                                                                                        

            My father and the 3rd-party administrator for Mesa Public Schools met in a school bus parking lot to prepare a bus driver for his court hearing. The bus driver described the accident to us, explaining how the plaintiff driving the car in front of him hit her brakes while the light at the intersection was still green. He stated that he stepped on the brakes as fast as possible to avoid a collision but the woman's vehicle had completely stopped even before the light turned red. He showed us the video of the incident recorded from the bus's dashboard camera, and the facts he claimed were consistent with the video evidence. My father advised him on certain phrases that the client should use when questioned by the judge to strengthen his case.

Thursday

            I attended a court ordered settlement conference before a judge pro tem. We arrived early to meet with the judge to create a good impression. All parties involved in the case were in separate conference rooms, with the judge pro tem circulating through the office to meet with each party. In my blog post from Week Six, I mentioned my analysis in preparation for a mock oral argument concerning a dog-at-large case, in which three sets of defendants were potentially statutorily liable: the dog owners who left their dog in the care of their son at his condominium and his live-in girlfriend. My father was defending the person the parents had left their dog with to watch over. The other parties in this case--the client's live-in girlfriend and the client's parents--claimed that my father's client was at fault for most of the damages.

            When the judge arrived in our room, he told my father and his adjustor, who was appearing telephonically, that he disagreed with the analysis in the defendant's settlement memo and that he needed the adjustor to present more money to get the case settled. Then my father stepped in and told the adjustor that the Judge pro Tem had no power to order him to take any action whatsoever, and that he should stand by this analysis and not be bullied by the judge pro tem. Despite this rough start to the conference, the judge eventually apologized for being overly aggressive, and my father and the judge, as professionals do, shook hands and went back to business. After three hours of negotiations, the case was eventually settled. The son and his girlfriend agreed that they were statutory liable for an equal amount of damages, and the parents disagreed because they were not in control of the dog and therefore agreed to contribute only a small fraction of the damages.

            I continue to enjoy the back-and-forth of settlement negotiations and also learned how certain situations call for a lawyer to stand his ground, but in a professional manner.

Friday

            My father took a deposition of a pro per plaintiff at his office. A pro per is a plaintiff not represented by an attorney. This deposition was scheduled by my father when the plaintiff refused to discuss settlement at the prior court-ordered settlement conference I mentioned in my blog post last week. In that settlement conference, the plaintiff had walked out because she refused to negotiate. The plaintiff is a middle-aged woman, the goddaughter of the original plaintiff, an older Cambodian man who died from cancer. The current plaintiff and the original plaintiff were involved in a car accident. However, the car accident is not the issue; the plaintiff is seeking a new car to replace the car never completely repaired by a repair shop.

            The original plaintiff, the owner of the car, received his insurance money and selected a repair shop to fix the car. For whatever reason, the original plaintiff refused to provide the repair shop with the entire amount of insurance money, withholding the portion related to labor costs. The body shop failed to complete the repair because the money provided by the plaintiff was inadequate to buy all the necessary parts. Thus, the car languished at the shop unfinished for years. The original plaintiff gave the car to the current plaintiff as a gift during this time. She ignored the notice regarding fees for storage, and the car is now gone.

            Since the repair shop is now out of business, the plaintiff has charged the insurance company with not intervening with the repair shop to fix the car. She claims charges in the amount of 50 dollars per day from the date of the accident to the present day for loss of use and also wants a new Acura (the old car was a 2006 model). My father attempted to explain the concept of mitigating damages, but the plaintiff failed to understand. Once again, she refused to talk settlement or negotiate.

            Acknowledging that he deposed a pro per, my father asked questions on the record, such as "Was I fair to you?" and "Did you have the opportunity to answer my questions?" to ensure that the plaintiff, who chose not to have a legal representative, would not be able to claim my father bullied or took advantage of her during trial.

            The testimony by the plaintiff seemed very weak--the plaintiff didn't know many details because the original plaintiff controlled the situation before his death. Additionally, she does not blame the original plaintiff for withholding the necessary money from the repair shop, nor does she blame the repair shop--she only targets the insurance company, the party with money. In this deposition, my father asked questions to pin down definitive answers by the plaintiff to prevent her from dancing around questions later.

Research

            After last week's post about the Supreme Court's stunting of student free speech rights, I wanted to add a positive note about a high school student editor in Arizona who triumphed against school censorship.

            Standing up for student free-press rights poses quite a formidable challenge to student journalists in Arizona--a battle valiantly waged and won by the aptly-named Thunderbird High School newspaper, The Challenge. The principal used prior restraint to pull an article conveying teachers' skepticism regarding a teacher testing program authored by a student, alleging that the article was biased, even though administrators had refused to provide information to balance the article. As a result, the newspaper was published with a blank space in place of the article.

            Honored with the 2010 Courage in Student Journalism Award, The Challenge's former Editor-in-Chief, Vaughn Hillyard, endured failure at three levels of administrative appeals--to the school principal, Superintendent, and the district governing board. Only the voluntary intervention of an attorney procured a resolution allowing the students to publish the censored article with attached comments from district officials. Unfortunately, the fact that the newspaper still remains subject to prior review dampens Hillyard's success.

            How many other student journalists would have the persistence, confidence, and courage to sustain such a protracted First Amendment crusade? According to my survey of public high school faculty advisors of student publications in Arizona, the answer is not many: roughly sixty-five percent admit to self-censorship, forgoing publishing content based on the fear that school officials would be likely to censor it. 

            What's the solution? How can Arizona educate its students to become citizens prepared to participate fully in our nation's civic life and navigate the marketplace of ideas? Does using prior restraint enrich meaningful conversation about public policy issues pertinent to high school students? Speech suppression might shield students from unpleasant realities, but leaves them ill-equipped to think critically and speak articulately on controversial subjects. Supervision, not silence, strengthens the exercise of responsible student journalistic ethics. On a practical level, a school can ask students to include a disclaimer, rather than censoring, a sensitive article to reinforce that the views do not express the opinion of the administration.

            I propose that the state must assume this responsibility to protect student free speech from school censorship. Relying on each individual school to affirmatively declare in a written policy that its student publications are public forums and to disavow prior review is not a sufficient bulwark against First Amendment violations. Only a state statute codifying the right of student journalists offers adequate protection.

            Censorship of an edition of Globe High School's student-run newspaper, The Papoose, in 2008 exemplifies the need for state legislation. Despite The Papoose's explicit proclamation that it did not reflect the opinion of Globe High School administrators or staff and its written designation as a public forum, school officials removed an edition of the newspaper containing an article discussing the function, growing popularity, and health dangers of smoking tobacco with a hookah--a topic with educational merit and unlikely to cause a material disruption of school. This article is a prime example of a social issue of importance to teenagers--one which merits speech and debate, not silence and denial.  

Blog 7

Monday

            After discovering that the sponsor of the student speech Senate Bill in 1999--Arizona State Senator Lopez--was retired, I drafted and sent an email to Senator Kelli Ward, the current Chairperson of the Education Committee in the Arizona State Senate, inquiring about her position on reintroducing a similar bill.

Tuesday

            I attended a court-ordered settlement conference presided over by a Judge Pro Tempore in his office. A Judge Pro Tempore is a temporarily appointed judge, who is a lawyer and not yet a judge. First, the Judge Pro Tempore discussed settlement behind closed doors with the plaintiff. Then, he stated that the plaintiff refused to budge from her original memorandum and she refused to quantify her damages with a dollar amount.

            The plaintiff claimed that she would fight this case as hard as she could because of the original plaintiff, who had since past away. The plaintiff was the god-daughter of the original plaintiff, a man who survived Pol Pot's genocide, so his attitude was very mistrusting. He filed the lawsuit against the auto-repair shop, which failed to fix the original plaintiff's car. However, the original plaintiff had withheld the necessary funds from the shop because he mistrusted them. Both the Judge Pro Tempore and my father acknowledged that the facts of the case were not in favor of the plaintiff.

            The Judge Pro Tempore left the room once again to confer privately with the plaintiff. After he returned, the plaintiff abruptly left the room and exited the office. The judge then explained how the plaintiff did not know her damages and was unable to give a dollar amount to settle the case.

            My father decided that he would depose the plaintiff and move for a summary judgment in an attempt to close the case.

Wednesday

            We visited the Old Courthouse in Phoenix once again for a minor's settlement. The plaintiff's attorney had informed my father the night before the hearing that the mother of the child may not be responsible enough to hold the minor's money. My father met with the attorney prior to the hearing to address this situation, but they decided that the mother would be an adequate acceptor of the settlement after explaining to her the rules regarding that the minor's settlement is not for her personal use, but only could be spent for and on behalf of the minor (like braces or a school field trip). Because the settlement amount was over the $10,000 statutory limit, we argued that because the "net" settlement was less than $10,000, the statute still applied. Fortunately, this issue did not hold up the settlement. While the Judge also raised a notice issue, as it related to the minor's father, the judge decided to not let that issue prevent the approval of the settlement.

Research

            This week I concentrated on analyzing law review articles discussing the detrimental effects of Hazelwood's ambiguous standard of review--both on student speech and lower court decisions. Three articles in particular, K.R. Martin's Demoted to High School: Are College Students' Free Speech Rights the Same as Those of High School Students?,45 B.C.L. Rev. 173 (2003), L.E. Levine's and Catherine A. Reardon's The Resurgence of Censorship in the Twentieth Century?: The Ninth Circuit's Response in Planned Parenthood v. Clark County School District, Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development: Vol. 7: Iss. 2, Article 10 (2012), and Evan Mayor's The "Bong Hits" Case and Viewpoint Discrimination: A State Law Answer to Protecting Unpopular Student Viewpoints The George Washington Law Review Vol. 77: No. 3 (April 2009), provided compelling arguments. The first two articles examined the Supreme Court's public forum analysis and regulation of school-sponsored speech in student expression cases before and after Hazelwood to assert that Hazelwood's absence of a definitive statement on viewpoint neutrality in regulating the content of student speech has spawned a circuit split, which must be remedied either by another Supreme Court ruling or school policy. Likewise, Mayor's article elaborated on the Supreme Court's failure to address the disparity in Lower Court rulings on viewpoint discrimination in the Morse case, but he advocated for a state statute remedy, based upon  the Supreme Court's reluctance to tackle the issue and the vulnerability of school policies to lower court interpretations.

            I've included a synopsis of the evolution of case law regarding student speech to emphasize the dangerous inadequacy of Hazelwood's standard in an attempt to argue for a return to the more practical Tinker standard.

Here's a quick sketch of legal precedent:

            According to Tinker, students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." The Court also recognized in Bethel School District v. Fraser that "the constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings." Thus, Fraser held that schools may sanction "lewd and indecent speech" that is "sexual in nature," applying Hazelwood, which stated that the rights of students "must be applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment." Relying on these cases, the U.S. Supreme Court in Morse et. al v. Frederick carved out another exception to free speech by stating that school officials may take action to prevent student speech that can reasonably be assumed to promote illegal drug use, even if the speech did not disrupt school under Tinker.  

            To read about the cases in more detail, (or if you are trying to fall asleep) continue on:

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

            The U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 affirmed the First Amendment rights of public school students, striking a balance between student expression and school authority with its "material and substantial disruption test." Requiring schools to offer more than a vague fear that student speech might disrupt order in school, the Court mandated that schools may censor content only if student expression will "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school," or invade the privacy rights of other students. Of course, student speech that is unprotected by the constitution can always be censored--such as obscenity, libel, false advertising, and incitement of a clear and present danger. In Tinker, students donned black armbands to school as an anti-Vietnam War protest and were suspended. The court held that the school violated the students' First Amendment rights, noting that since the school only punished one specific symbol--the arm bands--while allowing other symbols--political campaign buttons--the school's censorship amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, which is not permitted in any forum--public, limited, public, or non-public.

Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser

            In Fraser in 1986, Chief Justice Warren Burger differentiated the sexually suggestive speech of a high school student at a school assembly from Tinker's armband connoting a political viewpoint. Upholding the student suspension, the court deferred to the school's decision regarding the appropriateness of student expression, without demanding proof of a "material and substantial disruption" under Tinker. Consequently, viewpoint discrimination seemed to be tolerated by the Court, a significant shift in First Amendment jurisprudence.

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier

            The Supreme Court created a new standard of review in Hazelwood in 1988 that continues to cast a shadow on student free expression today. In the case itself, a school principal censored controversial articles about teenage pregnancy and divorce written by the staff of the high school newspaper. In 1985, the district court of Missouri ruled in favor of the principal, stating that high school newspapers are not a public forum and that the topics were not appropriate for the high school setting. However, in 1986, the decision was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, finding the school newspaper to be a public forum and applying the "material and substantial disruption test" standard of Tinker to the case, which led the court to believe that the students' First Amendment free speech rights had been violated because there was no proof that these articles would create a disturbance to the school environment.

            However, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the circuit court's decision and created a new standard for the review of student publications in high school. The rulings of Tinker and Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser confirmed that students have their First Amendment rights to free speech, but some elements of free speech can be restricted inside a school as it may conflict with the school's educational purpose. The court used a three-step process to its ruling: the type of forum where the speech was created (in a journalism class), the nature of the speech in the disputed articles, and the review of the principal's censorship.

Public Forum Analysis

            The more public the forum, the higher the scrutiny of speech regulations. The three types of public fora characterized by the Supreme Court are the traditional public forum enjoying robust First Amendment protections (such as a public park), the limited public forum, in which public speech is permitted temporarily, and the nonpublic forum (government property where free speech may be more restricted). Both traditional public forums and limited public forums receive strict scrutiny of content-based regulations by the court. Under the strict scrutiny standard, the state must have a "compelling state interest" and the regulation must be "narrowly tailored." Nonetheless, even the seemingly sacrosanct public forum of a public street is subject to speech regulations based on time, place, and manner. For example, a planned protest march must apply for a permit from the city so that the city can provide adequate police protection and regulate traffic safely. 

            In a non-public forum, courts apply a lesser standard of review: the regulation of speech must be reasonable and viewpoint neutral. In Hazelwood, the Court held that the student newspaper was a non-public forum on the grounds that the school exercised control over the publication, which was produced as part of the journalism class. The Court reasoned that the school's intent was for the newspaper to be a "supervised learning experience for journalism students," not an indiscriminate use of a public forum. It deemed the school's censorship reasonable because it was "school-sponsored speech" bearing the "imprimatur" of the school: the school's name was on the newspaper and school funds were used to produce the paper. Therefore, the newspaper was not personal student expression, but school-sponsored speech, supporting the court's substantial deference to the school's restrictions on style and content, as long as they are "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns." The Court esteemed the school's actions reasonable in light of the "legitimate pedagogical" goal of protecting the specific students mentioned in the article discussing pregnancy and freshmen and possibly their younger siblings at home. Because the Court did not expressly limit this ruling to high school students, many lower courts have extended it even to university publications, such as Hosty v. Carter. 

            Brennan's dissent asserted that the Hazelwood school would have failed Tinker's material and substantial disruption test because the students' articles did not disrupt school functioning or invade the rights of others--for example, it did not cause a walk-out or riot. Brennan believed that the Tinker standard was a fair balance between school and student interests and did not need to be revised in Hazelwood. In fact, Brennan asserted that the Tinker standard should remain, even if student speech is not school-sponsored.

Post-Hazelwood Federal Court Cases      

 

            Nonpublic forums were unable to have speech suppressed by the government based on the viewpoint of the speaker prior to Hazelwood. In the aftermath of Hazelwood, the circuit courts have been split concerning the constitutionality of viewpoint discrimination in student speech, partly because Hazelwood was silent on the issue.  The First, Third, and Tenth Circuits have taken a stance permitting viewpoint discrimination by public schools, interpreting Fraser broadly as justification for justifying offensive speech. On the contrary, the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits ruled that viewpoint discrimination is impermissible in any type of government forum. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Fleming v. Jefferson County School District R-1 exemplified this circuit split. Stressing Hazelwood's finding that schools can regulate speech bearing the school's imprimatur, Fleming ruled that Hazelwood does not require viewpoint neutrality.   

Planned Parenthood v. Clark County School District           

            This case highlights how Hazelwood's vague, loose standard has been inconsistently applied. It is evidence that the First Amendment needs a stronger constitutional bulwark to protect student speech.

             In 1989, the Ninth Circuit held that the student publication at issue was not a public forum. Planned Parenthood sued the school district claiming violations of free speech because of the school's refusal to publish their advertisement in the student newspaper. However, since they were not students, the problem did not deal with students' First Amendment rights.

            First, the court defined what type of forum existed, and then it decided which level of scrutiny to apply to analyze if the First Amendment was violated. The Planned Parenthood Court cited the public forum test expressed in Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educator's Association, which held that schools could become public forums if policies or practices exercised by school officials opened these facilities "for indiscriminate use by the general public." To decide if the school intended the newspaper to be a public forum, the court looked for written policies. Thus, the Court concluded that there was no intent to open a public forum. Citing Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. 473 U.S. 788 (1985), the Court approved of the school's pedagogical interest in avoiding controversy as reasonable in a non-public forum, such as this student newspaper. However, if the Court had found the paper to be a public forum, this rationale would not have been reasonable.

            Lana E. Levine and Catherine Reardon posit that the Ninth Circuit exhibited the following three flaws in its decision: assuming a policy made by officials to be the only factor in establishing a public forum, applying the Hazelwood public forum test incorrectly, and failing to recognize the proper forum as the advertising space, not the student newspaper itself. If the court investigated further beyond the written rules of the school, it would have discovered  the intent to make a public or limited public forum, since all advertisements--including those from casinos, bars, medical clinics, political campaigns, and churches--were accepted, except those from Planned Parenthood.

Morse et al. v. Frederick

            Morse, a high school principal, was alarmed when she saw students at a school-sponsored event roll out a banner with a message she regarded as an inappropriate promotion of illegal drug use--"Bongs Hits 4 Jesus." When she demanded that the students put away the banner, one student, Frederick, refused, resulting in his suspension and her confiscation of the banner. An Olympic Torch Relay was passing by the school on the day of the incident. Frederick later claimed that the sign was only nonsense; his only purpose was to get on television, not to promote illegal drug use. Since this transpired at a school-approved social event, Frederick's argument that this case is not a school-sponsored speech was immediately rejected by the Supreme Court.

            Frederick took the case to the federal district court, where the Juneau school board prevailed, drawing points from the Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser ruling. However, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order, stating Fraser only applies to speech that is "sexual in nature." Thus, the Court applied Tinker and ruled that the banner did not cause a substantial disruption, and consequently Frederick's rights were violated.

            In 2006, Chief Justice Roberts delivered the majority opinion, which held that school officials did not violate the First Amendment by suspending a student for his speech. Reversing the Ninth Circuit decision, the Supreme Court resolved two issues: the First Amendment permits schools to prohibit students from promoting the use of illegal drugs at a school event and the Ninth Circuit strayed away from established standards of qualified immunity in holding that a principal was liable. Chief Justice Roberts found that the "special characteristics of the school environment" and the government's interest in drug prevention to be paramount concerns justifying censorship.

            In his dissent, Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Souter and Justice Ginsberg, found that "the First Amendment demands more, indeed, much more." Describing the banner as "nonsense," rather than advocacy of "illegal or harmful" conduct, Stevens disagrees with the majority's upholding of the school's decision to punish a student for "expressing a view with which it disagreed."  Moreover, Stevens takes the Court to task for neglecting to realize that the legalization of marijuana is a legitimate public policy issue and that "the Court's test invites stark viewpoint discrimination" (127 S.C.T. at 2645).

            In the post-Columbine shooting tragedy era of school violence, courts are likely to continue to be deferential to schools regulating student speech, adding support to the need for legislators to pass student-speech protective laws.

Blog 6

Blog 6

            This week's events--two conservatorship hearings and a deposition--reinforced the routine, everyday work of an attorney. In addition, I honed my interpretive and argumentative skills, while I continued researching for my SRP and for cases at my internship.

Monday

            Because today's hearing was rescheduled, I had time to research the latest examples of student  newspaper censorship on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education and the Student Press Law Center websites.

Tuesday

            More research allowed me to narrow down the relevant Supreme Court case law on the First Amendment in public high schools--Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986), Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), Morse et. al. v. Frederick (2007). Likewise, I studied precedent from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Arizona, as well as 15 Federal Judicial districts (mostly Western States, Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam). The pertinent Ninth Circuit case is Planned Parenthood v. Clark County School District (1989), However, both Fraser and Morse are Ninth Circuit decisions that were overruled. The circuit court confusion in interpreting Hazelwood often produces speech-restrictive results. For example, the Tenth Circuit Court case of Fleming v. Jefferson County School District R1(2002), upheld viewpoint discrimination--a type of discrimination usually not even allowed in non-public forums. This case led me back to review once more the seminal public forum analysis Cornelius v. NAACP Leg. Def. Fund (1985). This research has cemented my opinion that Hazelwood's ambiguous standard for evaluating school censorship of student publications opened a Pandora's Box of infringement upon students' free speech, confirming Tinker's framework as the proper balancing of authority and expression.

Wednesday                                          

            At the Phoenix court house, we met with a minor's mother to prepare her for testimony before the judge in a minor's settlement. In this conservatorship hearing, the minor was only one month shy of 18. Everything went well. I realized that I am growing familiar with these routine processes. I've memorized the procedure and statements by now. More interesting, on a personal level, was meeting with the minor's attorney afterwards. He was in his twenties and had attended Dartmouth as an undergrad and then attended UA law school. He even interviews seniors who apply to Dartmouth. Although he loved his college experience, he returned to Arizona, where he was born and raised, because he wanted to avoid student debt. It was an enlightening perspective to consider as I hear results from out-of-state colleges.

            Later, I reissued my online survey to my targeted group of 83 faculty advisers for student publications in Arizona. Since I had only received 21 responses at this point, I attached a new cover letter explaining my need for a more accurate representation of respondents' experience with prior review and censorship. Gratifyingly, I immediately received two more; more dismayingly, I've only received a total of four more as of this writing. Nevertheless, the trend of the responses is strong and supports the anecdotal evidence that both faculty advisers and student editors practice self-censorship, arguably in light of the looming threat of prior review and restraint. Finally, I completed a detailed analysis of my survey results, using percentages to correlate relationships and establish trends.

Thursday

            Instead of attending legal proceedings or researching cases, today I practiced how to form a legal argument. My father, another attorney, and I engaged in a mock oral argument based on a dog-at-large statute case. Since this was my second time encountering this statute, I already understood about strict liability, but the facts in this case argued that three defendants were strictly liable. Thus, the issue was apportioning strict liability under the statute, rather than assessing the reasonableness of a party's actions under the common law. After reading an assessment of liability and damages, I disagreed with the conclusions and had to present my argument and recommendations. Interestingly, the second attorney had a completely contrary assessment of liability and damages. This lively debate highlighted how legal minds can differ and how interpretation is pivotal to apportionment of fault. No question of facts were being considered; we were preparing for a summary judgment based on the law.

Friday

            I was glad to conclude the week with a deposition. I look forward to depositions because the attorney must adapt his strategy to address the particular plaintiff being questioned. In this case, the plaintiff, a pharmacist, had both medical bills and wage loss claims based on a lower back injury from an automobile accident. Her car was rear-ended by the defendant's truck and propelled into a car in front of her, causing a chain reaction with three other cars. Because the defendant admitted liability, the issue concerned damages. The plaintiff's damages and wage loss claims were close to exhausting the defendant's insurance policy limit. Her persistent back pain is likely to continue in the future. The defendant's policy coverage was not large enough to fully compensate her injuries.

            Hearing her first statement--a lengthy, detailed list of her specific duties and tasks as a pharmaceutical manager--I knew instantly that my father would need to take a different strategy to accommodate this plaintiff. She further elaborated about her inability to perform everyday tasks at her job and at home. Moreover, inconclusive MRI reports failed to pinpoint a clear solution to her injury. Being sensitive and respectful to the plaintiff  during both the deposition and subsequent informal settlement conference, my father convinced the plaintiff to decide against pursuing the defendant's excess coverage. She accepted the defendant's offer of settlement and decided to pursue a claim on her own Underinsured Motorist Coverage (UIM).

            Before this case, I was not too familiar with either Underinsured Motorist Coverage or Uninsured Motorist Coverage, but now I realize the value of both. If you are hit by a driver who either lacks any automobile insurance or only possesses a policy limit lower than the dollar value of your damages from your injury, then you can make a claim with your own insurance company for the excess amount if you have Underinsured or Uninsured Motorist Coverage.

            Later that day, I returned to the dog-at-large case to continue polish my oral argument. 

Blog 5

            In this blog, I combined Spring Break and Week 5. Two of the days were the most intriguing so far during my internship: the accident scene investigation and the settlement negotiations.

Tuesday

            Today, the tables were turned; this time, we were representing the plaintiff when being deposed, rather than our usual position as a defense attorney asking the questions to the plaintiff. I attended the deposition of the female plaintiff, who we had previously interviewed in preparation of her deposition regarding her car accident. In my eyes, the plaintiff made a good witness, meaning that she persuasively presented her position in a credible manner.

            Discussions centered on damages: her injuries resulting from the accident. Before the accident, the plaintiff had some problems with her neck and hand, but she had fully recovered by the time of the accident. After the accident, the plaintiff developed problems with her shoulder, arm, and tingling in her thumb; her entire right arm hurt, preventing her from sleeping since she habitually slept on her right side. Being bounced from doctor to doctor and receiving a number of conflicting diagnoses, the plaintiff ultimately had carpel tunnel surgery on her right wrist. After that surgery, she lost her pain--an admission which elicited a laugh from the defense attorney and the court report when my father said, "That is a breath of fresh air" in this business, since plaintiffs rarely admit to full recovery.

            After the deposition, we began settlement negotiations and requested that the defense attorney contact my father to discuss the case before he prepared his report to the insurance company. Then, we met with the client to discuss the value of her claim and to agree upon strategy to attempt to resolve the case.

Thursday

            To prepare for our accident scene inspection, my father and I reviewed the plaintiff's notice of claim against our client, defendant Mesa Public Schools. The plaintiff, a ten-year-old student, alleged a serious fracture injury to his right lower leg. We reviewed medical records, bills, photos, and x-rays to prepare for the meeting with the client at the accident scene.

            At the elementary school, we met with the principal and two playground aides, and inspected the accident scene, the recess field where the student broke his leg while playing Capture the Flag. Mesa Public Schools' 3rd party administrator joined us, and we discussed developing a plan for further handling of the case for a meeting with the plaintiff's attorney. Surprisingly, my father and the administrator were unfamiliar with the rules of the game; I gave a quick rundown and the principal elaborated. The plaintiff had been in pursuit of another student carrying the flag; he alleged that he hit the fence and twisted his foot in a hole under the fence. However, the plaintiff's allegations would mean the plaintiff was chasing the boy past the halfway point, which is contrary to the traditional rules. Later, I researched the rules of Capture the Flag to confirm the general accepted practices of the game.

            During our inspection, school was in session; watching the little kids running around at recess reminded me of days long ago.

Wednesday

            I thoroughly enjoyed attending the today's events; I was fascinated by each party's posturing without being untruthful, but simultaneously not showing all their cards.

            Today started with preparing for the deposition of a plaintiff in a personal injury case involving two defendants, with my father representing one co-defendant. Both liability and damages were disputed. Adding more complexity, the plaintiff was the wife of a co-defendant, and obviously favorable to the co-defendant. Likewise, the co-defendant was favorable to the plaintiff on damages. Consequently, it was two against one on liability, two against one on damages; a real David and Goliath predicament, with my father as David.

            To compound the problem, my father's client failed to appear for his deposition--an unfavorable development. The client's absence essentially transformed the situation into two against zero. David lost his sling, but he still had his stone.

            My father did the best he could on cross-examination of the plaintiff and the co-defendant on liability and damages, but without his own client, his position seemed weak. My father and I consulted on how to deal with the situation, and he suggested an informal settlement conference. This is when things grew more interesting.

            We met with the co-defendant's attorney and the plaintiff's attorney to suggest the best plan for further handling, and it was agreed that every attorney would agree to recommend to their clients on what was a reasonable settlement of the case. Ultimately, they reached an agreement that everyone would agree on a recommended settlement on a dollar amount, with the two defendants sharing equally--50/50--on the settlement. Things then became more difficult.

            The plaintiff's attorney obtained authority for the agreed-upon the recommended dollar amount of settlement, and the co-defendant's attorney had authority to contribute matching money with my father's client. Unfortunately, my father was not able to obtain authority for matching money; his client's insurance adjuster only authorized a lesser amount. From that point, negotiations back and forth over what the plaintiff would accept and what the co-defendant would offer in non-matching funds resulted in an agreement in which the co-defendant agreed to pay 60 percent and my father's client agreed to pay 40 percent of the settlement.

            At the end of the day, I thought that the settlement negotiation tactics and strategies employed by all sides were some of the most appealing aspects of being a lawyer. 

Blog 4

            While I didn't put much mileage on my car this week, I managed to cover a lot of ground researching Arizona student publications and the Arizona legislative history of an attempt in 1999 to pass an anti-Hazelwood statute. By the close of the week, I advanced to the next stage in my Senior Research Project-- launching my survey and receiving responses from public high school journalism faculty advisers.

Monday

            Logging seemingly-endless hours of phone calls to individual public schools to retrieve email addresses for faculty advisers for yearbooks or newspapers brought me nearer to my goal of selecting a targeted group of 83 schools to survey out of the 385 public high schools in Arizona. Many schools do not produce a student newspaper or even a yearbook. Surprisingly, it's not always the smaller schools in more remote locations; for example, Saguaro and Coronado High Schools in the Scottsdale Unified School District do not have student newspapers. As expected, Maricopa County had the largest pool of public high schools with journalism programs, with Pima County second. More unexpectedly, Yuma County hosts a significant-for-its-size crop of student newspapers. A few schools even offered broadcast journalism on a school TV channel.

            In retrospect, canvassing the schools reinforced what I had been learning by driving around the state in prior weeks: I was brushing up on my geography of Arizona. Looking at various school websites imparted the flavor of the different regions of Arizona, We really are a diverse state: I couldn't reach schools in Flagstaff last Friday because they were closed due to snow, while I was sitting in 70 degree weather in Phoenix.  On a side note, Arizona suffers from an overpopulation of wildcats and bulldogs--the hands-down favorite mascot of a majority of high schools. However, one school probably boasts the most unique mascot in all of the U.S.: Yuma High School cheers on "the Criminals" in homage to its territorial prison. Moreover, BASIS is dwarfed by many schools: Hamilton High School in Chandler squeezes in over 3500 students, and Mesa School District has at least 4 high schools with over 3000 students, also.

Tuesday

            Tuesday began with a bang-- receiving an email containing the Superior Court judge's decision on my father's Motion for Summary Judgment in the Mesa Public School adv. Encinas, et. al. case. The motion was granted! Thus, Mesa Public Schools will not have to go to trial to defend itself against the plaintiffs' allegation of a breach of the claimed duty to provide a school crossing guard for non-students. I wasn't surprised that my father prevailed, since I had thought at the oral argument that he had the stronger argument, using the Monroe vs. BASIS Schools case as precedent. However, the judge's off-record comment at the conclusion of the hearing expressing that this was a "tragic" case had me a little worried. However, the judge agreed with my father, finding the plaintiffs' reliance on the Alhambra case did not apply because the school district in that case had created a crosswalk and thus had assumed a duty to anyone who used the crosswalk, not just students. However, in the Mesa Public Schools case, the crosswalk was not of Mesa Public School's making, but rather an existing crosswalk which imposed no legal duty on the School District to provide crossing guards for non-students. Even though the guards sometimes arrived before school was dismissed, the court held that those facts did not impose a duty upon Mesa Public Schools.

Wednesday

            Once again, a well-timed phone call saved me a car trip. Using the citation I found at the county law library at the courthouse last week, I followed up with the Arizona State Library at the capital, ferreting out the legislative history of the Senate Bill introduced in 1999 to prohibit censorship in Arizona student publications. Because all bills after 1997 have their history available online, I accessed the minutes of the Committee on Education, which was assigned the S.B.1212-441R in February 1999. Senator Lopez, a Democrat representing District 22, was the "Prime Prime Sponsor" for the bill. I already knew the bill failed to pass, but I did not realize that it was never even voted upon. Instead, the Committee held the bill; no further action was taken on the bill in the Judiciary or Rules Committees. The minutes provided a few answers, but simultaneously provoked more questions. I learned that the Arizona Civil Liberties Union supported the bill under the right to free speech in US and Arizona Constitutions and stressed that such laws exist in other states, in which no disputes over student publications have arisen thereafter. Senator Lopez explained that authorized student publications would include a faculty adviser to decide with students what to publish.

            Next, I created an 11-question survey using SurveyMonkey in order for faculty advisers to feel comfortable, knowing that their responses would be anonymous. My survey will provide data to anecdotally assess the extent to which schools in Arizona practice prior review or label student publications as speech-protected public forums. Questions also addressed self-censorship. I modeled some of the questions after a survey of high school journalists and their media advisers at the National High School Journalism Convention in Washington DC in 2013. In this way, I can compare my Arizona survey results with a national survey.

Thursday

            Drafting a cover letter to introduce my attached survey, I sent out the survey and was pleased when my first response came through less than one minute later. A few teachers expressed interest in my survey and asked to hear the results. As of this writing, I've received 19 responses. Hopefully, this is not a plateau and more responses will arrive over the break.