CULTURE WARS AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE GATE: SCHOOL BOARD DECISION MAKING & STUDENTS’ SPEECH RIGHTS

Abstract

School boards occupy a unique space in the fabric of American governance. School board members are often called upon to make decisions about how the values of a community are reflected in its schools, their classrooms, and even the school district’s library collection. These decisions are far from inconsequential. School board members serve as a link between federal case law and the ways students in the district will experience their First Amendment rights to free speech and expression. School boards have been in the spotlight regarding the retention and/or removal of challenged school library books (Natanson, 2020). One of the most frequent reasons for book challenges has been the inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and more (LGBTQIA+) characters and themes in library books (American Library Association, 2023). After studying culture war conflicts, Hunter (1991), Zimmerman (2002), and Harman (2019) posit that the bounds of pluralistic living, such as whether to include or exclude educational materials with LGBTQIA+ characters, are never settled for good. Instead, culture war-related conflicts will follow a cycle of conflict and peace. When the issue of library book challenges resurfaces, school boards must decide how to respond. Although school boards are often tasked with making difficult decisions related to the speech and expression rights of public-school students and culture war issues such as religion in schools (Ross, 1994) and the inclusion of intelligent design (Superfine, 2009); they are also responsible for ensuring that the constitutional rights of public-school students are protected. Where, if at all, might a school board member turn for guidance on these persistent challenges? For legal guidance, they might consider turning to the Supreme Court of the United States. In Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), the Supreme Court ruled that the removal of school library books was enmeshed with the First Amendment rights of public school students. As such, Justice William Brennan argued in the plurality opinion, that school board members must avoid removing library books due to a disagreement with the ideas in the book or because of one’s motivation to remove the book for political or partisan reasons (Driver, 2018). Do board members heed this guidance and if so the degree to which school boards use the decision in Pico (1982) when making decisions about challenged library books is an open empirical question and the focus of this study. This dissertation study uses case study methodology to examine the influence of Pico (1982) on one district school board’s decision-making process during two different library book challenges in the same suburban public school district in Virginia (Yin, 2014). The first case study centers on the 2008 challenge to the book And Tango Makes Three and the second case study centers on the 2019 challenge to the book My Princess Boy. Both And Tango Makes Three and My Princess Boy were challenged by members of the school community due to LGBTQIA+ characters. Each case study offers insights into an important but little-studied phenomenon of school board decision-making, which has consequences for understanding how school boards conceptualize and balance the rights of public school students during culture war-related conflicts. The findings for each case study indicate that Pico (1982) was not a factor of influence in school board decision-making in the cases examined. This finding has implications for how the First Amendment rights of public school students are protected during library book challenges. Despite the lack of influence of Pico (1982) on board member deliberation and decision-making, each case study does offer insight into the ways that school board members engaged in the decision-making process following a book challenge as well as the way the guidance in Pico (1982) does not align to the process used by each school board. Taken together, these case studies highlight the internal processes school boards use when making book challenge decisions, the complicated legal role of school board members, areas of misalignment between the law as written and the law in practice, and how district policy is used by school board members during a culture war-related conflict.