A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit a group of parents and taxpayers brought against the Lakeville school district in hopes of getting Black Lives Matter posters banned from the community’s schools.
U.S. District Judge Jerry W. Blackwell dismissed the lawsuit, stating that the posters constituted government speech and therefore did not fall under the First Amendment challenge.
According to court documents, after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police in May 2020, “school administrators, staff, and teachers joined much of the country in finding ways to support their students, including Black students.”
The Lakeville school board participated in this exercise when they “vetted and authorized a multicultural poster series,” including two posters that read ‘Black Lives Matter.’
“Not everyone supported the decision. Believing the posters carried political messages, some parents and students objected to hanging ‘Black Lives Matter’ posters without also displaying posters offering various other viewpoints,” court documents said.
The Lakeville school board denied their requests and the first of two federal lawsuits was filed.
The plaintiffs included Kalynn Aaker, whose daughter Novalee, then 9, went viral in May 2021 when she rebuked the school board for displaying the posters in her school after saying such “political” messages weren’t allowed. Others joined in suing the school district, including Lakeville residents Bob and Cynthia Cajune, as well as others who filed anonymously.
Some of the same plaintiffs first sued in August 2021. However, that lawsuit was dismissed because a judge found the plaintiffs lacked standing because Aaker’s daughter no longer attended Lakeville schools and because the residents didn’t pay taxes directly to the school district but rather indirectly through the county and state.
A second lawsuit was filed in September 2022, listing Aaker’s other children, who still attend district schools, as plaintiffs.
According to the complaint, then-Superintendent Michael Baumann in September 2020 told teachers not to display Black Lives Matter posters in their classrooms and informed families that such posters violated the district’s policy against political endorsements.
The following spring, however, the district ordered a series of “inclusive” posters, two of which said “Black Lives Matter,” and distributed them to staff members upon request. In an April 2021 report to the school board, administrators said the posters were intended to “support staff in creating school communities where students are respected, valued and welcome.”
When Bob Cajune asked that “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” posters also be displayed, equity director Lydia Linsoe responded that those slogans “were created specifically in opposition to Black Lives Matter” and “discount the struggle” faced by Black students and others in society, the complaint stated.
The plaintiffs claimed the district’s refusal to give equal space to those messages violated the First Amendment prohibition against viewpoint discrimination. They also said the district’s posters created a “hostile education environment” for Aaker’s white children.
In his order of dismissal, Blackwell said the central issue was whether displaying the Black Lives Matter posters violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights by endorsing what they claimed was a hostile political ideology.
“Because display of the posters constitutes government speech not subject to First Amendment challenge, the school board’s motion is granted” and the lawsuit is dismissed, he wrote.