The Upperman High School softball team is shown at a game. (Screengrab via YouTube)
A federal appeals court resuscitated a high school softball dad’s lawsuit when it ruled that the school district’s decision to ban the father from his daughter’s sports events was a violation of the First Amendment.
Randall McElhaney, the father of “L.M.,” a softball player at Upperman High School in Baxter, Tennessee, was an enthusiastic supporter of his daughter’s participation in sports. McElhaney was a season ticket holder with seats behind home plate. L.M. initially played second base and pitched for her school’s team, but during her senior year, her playing time during games decreased dramatically.
Although parents had been instructed not to discuss decisions related to playing time with coaching staff, McElhaney sent a series of lengthy text messages to L.M.’s coach expressing frustration with the choices of which players to put in the games.
One message read, “You need to look at the books and find out which kid has made the least amount of errors on the team. I can tell you [L] is with 0.”
Another critiqued the player who had been chosen to play: “[C] has made two errors already” and “She has no idea what she is doing.”
The coach, Dustin Williams, responded with a similarly lengthy text. beginning, “I am sorry you feel this way, and sorry that you don’t understand that we are only trying to do what we feel like is best for our team currently,” and explaining the rationale behind some of the coaching decisions.
“We enjoy having [L] on our team and appreciate her heart . . . she is a great kid and a joy to be around, but I am under no circumstances going to continue to justify our reasons for what we do inside of our program or what we feel like is best for us,” Williams also wrote.
The coach told McElhaney that if he insisted on furthering his complaints, he should take them to school administration or “walk away from the program.”
McElhaney responded:
If you feel so disrespected, I would love for you to tell me how this…situation should be handled any differently than discussing it with you instead of running to someone else…. I have coached several teams in my past so its not like I don’t know what I’m talking about…. I will never go to administration over a coach unless they physically harm my kid. I don’t believe in that. If I ever feel I need for my kid or kids to step away from a team I will pull them. Then we will have a decision to either not …play at all or have them transfer and play for someone else. My kids are no where near all stars and I don’t treat them that way at all. I would like…for her to remain with the team but would also like to see her be able to contribute as well…. In a nutshell maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to you and maybe…just let my kid to learn to talk with you and address all of her concerns.
Williams, believing that McElhaney had violated the team’s policy about communicating about coaching decisions, reported McElhaney’s texts to the school principal who agreed that the messages had been inappropriate and banned McElhaney from a week of softball games.
McElhaney challenged the suspension to the school board, but was unsuccessful. He then attended L.M.’s game in contravention of the principal’s suspension directive. Although McElhaney was not said to have disrupted the game in any way, the principal saw him at the game and asked him to leave. A school resource officer told McElhaney that failure to leave would render him a trespasser. McElhaney did leave, then sued the school administration and the resource officer for violation of his First Amendment rights and for violation of his due process rights for taking his property (his season tickets) without compensation.
The trial judge, Barack Obama appointee U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, Jr., granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the grounds that the school officials were entitled to qualified immunity from McElhaney’s claim because the right he raised (defined by the defendants as “the right to attend games after criticiz[ing] the coach” was not “clearly established” by prior cases.
A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, using a softball analogy of its own.
Donald Trump appointee and former acting assistant attorney general for the United States Department of Justice Civil Division Chad Readler wrote for the panel and said that McElhaney needed “to turn a double play of sorts.”
“He must show both that (1) school officials violated his constitutional rights, and (2) that ‘the right was “clearly established” at the time of the challenged conduct,”” Readler explained, quoting from a 2012 case. “[As] McElhaney must touch both bases, a court need resolve only one of the two inquiries in defendants’ favor to grant judgment to defendants.”
Bill Clinton appointee Ronald Lee Gilman and Joe Biden appointee Andre Mathis rounded out the three-judge panel
Readler next schooled the lower court on the legal implications of restricting what parents are permitted to say.
“[D]efendants believe that the First Amendment allows them to place ‘substance restrictions’ on parental speech to school officials, including a prohibition against ‘directly debating with [a] coach about playing time,’” Readler wrote. “As a matter of decorum, that rule might well make good sense. But for better or worse, the First Amendment protects many statements and actions that arguably lack decorum.”
Likewise, Readler said that the lower court had been wrong to consider whether McElhaney’s speech might have been “disruptive.” That standard applies to student on-campus speech, not to “run-of-the-mill adult speech targeting school officials,” the decision said.
Readler pointed out that school officials are not “entirely hamstrung in dealing with a parent like McElhaney.”
Rather, schools “may impose reasonable, viewpoint neutral, time, place, and manner restrictions on parental interactions with the school,” such as restricting communications during games or practice time.
Though the appellate court sided with McElhaney on the First Amendment issue, it upheld the trial court’s decision to throw out the due process claim. The deprivation of McElhaney’s season tickets was a matter entirely settled by state contract law and, therefore, not appropriate for the court to decide, said the panel.
Though the court’s ruling was a win for McElhaney, it did not come without a clear indication that the court disapproved of the father’s behavior.
Readle began his decision with words of reprimand for McElhaney:
Youth sports are as much about instilling life lessons as they are winning and losing. Child athletes can be forgiven for occasionally losing sight of this bigger picture. But we expect more from their parents.
As this case demonstrates, those expectations are not always met.
You can read the full ruling here.
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