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22 Pursuant to the court’s December 10, 2018, order directing the parties to submit
23 supplemental briefs, defendants Claremont Unified School District (“CUSD”), James
24 Elsasser, Steven Llanusa, Hilary LaConte, Beth Bingham, Nancy Treser Osgood,
25 David Nemer, Ann O’Connor, and Brenda Hamlett respectfully submit the following
26 supplemental brief in support of their motion, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
27 Procedure 12(b)(6), for an order dismissing plaintiffs Riley’s American Heritage
28 Farms and James Patrick Riley’s complaint:
1
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1 sued the Texas State Board of Education after the Board refused to place his textbook
2 on a list of textbooks approved for use in classrooms throughout the state. The
3 textbook at issue had initially been recommended for approval by the Board, but
4 approval was ultimately denied after two “conservative think-tank organizations”
5 voiced their displeasure with the textbook. (Id. at pp. 609-610.) The textbook author
6 then sued the Board, alleging that the Board’s decision constituted impermissible
7 viewpoint discrimination in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First
8 Amendment. (Id. at p. 610.)
9 The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order dismissing the textbook
10 author’s First Amendment claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The appellate court began its
11 analysis by observing that “the states enjoy broad discretionary powers in the field of
12 public education. Central among these discretionary powers is the authority to
13 establish public school curricula which accomplish[ ] the states’ educational
14 objectives.” (Id. at p. 611 (citing Bd. of Ed. v. Pico (1982) 457 U.S. 853, 864).)
15
In Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 741, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 41 L.Ed.2d
16 1069 (1974), Chief Justice Burger wrote: “No single tradition in public
17
education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of
schools; local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the
18 maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and
19
to quality of the educational process.” Similarly, in San Antonio
Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 50, 93 S.Ct. 1278,
20 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973), the Court observed that local control over the
21
educational process affords citizens an opportunity to participate in
decision making, permits the structuring of school programs to fit local
22 needs, and encourages “experimentation, innovation, and a healthy
23
competition for educational excellence.”
24 (Ibid.) Relying on these precedents, the Fifth Circuit held: “[I]n establishing and
25 implementing certain governmental functions, the government, including its
26 educational institutions, has the discretion to promote policies and values of its own
27 choosing free from forum analysis or the viewpoint-neutrality requirement.” (Id. at p.
28 613.) Furthermore, the court held that “the government retains this discretion even
3
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1 where it chooses to employ private speakers to transmit its message.” (Ibid.) The court
2 therefore concluded:
3 [W]hen the [Board] devises the state curriculum for Texas and selects the
textbook with which teachers will teach to the students, it is the state
4
speaking, and not the textbook author. Designing the curriculum and
5 selecting textbooks is a core function of the [Board]. It is necessary for
6
the Board to exercise editorial judgment over the content of the
instructional materials it selects for use in the public school classrooms,
7 and the exercise of that discretion will necessarily reflect the viewpoint
8
of the Board members. The purpose of the Board is not to establish a
forum for the expression of the views the various authors of textbooks
9 and other instructional materials might want to interject into the
10
classroom. The Board does not encourage a “diversity of views,” …but
instead “enlists private entities to convey its own message.” Further, the
11 Board has a statutory obligation under Texas law to exercise that
12 discretion in order to promote the state’s chosen message through the
Board's educational policy. [¶] Because the Board must necessarily
13 exercise its editorial discretion in selecting which private entities will
14 convey the message the state selects, forum analysis and the viewpoint
neutrality requirement are inapposite in this case. As a result, there is no
15 forum to which Appellant Chiras can claim access as a textbook author.
16 (Id. at pp. 614-615.)
17 The choice of a field trip venue is a fundamental part of curriculum design, just
18 as the choice of approved textbooks was in Chiras. Like the Texas law cited by the
19 Fifth Circuit, the California Education Code vests local school districts with the
20 statutory discretion to “initiate and carry on any program [or] activity” – including
21 field trips – which the school districts deem “necessary or desirable in meeting their
22 needs.” (Cal. Ed. Code, §§ 35160-35160.1.) The First Amendment undoubtedly
23 guarantees Mr. Riley’s right to speak on matters of public concern, just as it
24 guaranteed Chiras’ right to write and publish his textbook. However, the First
25 Amendment does not guarantee a right to have a public school district patronize a
26 private business, whether that business is a field trip venue or a textbook publisher.
27 The Supreme Court’s holding in Rust v. Sullivan (1991) 500 U.S. 173 is also
28 instructive. In that case, the Court addressed the federal government’s prohibition on
4
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1 Community Sch. Dist. (1969) 393 U.S. 503, 506 (public schools may regulate speech
2 that threatens “substantial disruption”).)
3 In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988) 484 U.S. 260, the Supreme
4 Court observed that “the education of the Nation’s youth is primarily the
5 responsibility of parents, teachers, and state and local school officials, and not of
6 federal judges.” (Id. at p. 273.) Although it is typically applied in the context of student
7 speech, the Supreme Court’s holding in Hazelwood is relevant here, as it stands for
8 the proposition that educators are entitled to exercise editorial control over school-
9 sponsored expressive activities such as school publications or theatrical productions,
10 so long as their actions are “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.”
11 (Ibid.) Such controls “assure that participants learn whatever lessons the activity is
12 designed to teach, that readers or listeners are not exposed to material that may be
13 inappropriate for their level of maturity, and that the views of the individual speaker
14 are not erroneously attributed to the school.” (Id. at p. 271.) These concerns are
15 equally as significant to public school administrators’ choice of a field trip venue as
16 they were to the decision of which articles to publish in the high school newspaper in
17 Hazelwood. In either context, public school administrators’ regulation of curriculum-
18 related speech does not raise First Amendment concerns if the regulation is reasonably
19 related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.
20 In this case, legitimate pedagogical concerns abound. Indeed, by its very
21 definition, school administrators’ choice of a field trip venue is a legitimate
22 pedagogical concern, as it involves the design of the school curriculum, the activities
23 in which students will engage during school hours, and the ideas to which they will
24 be exposed during that time. School administrators must choose field trips that are
25 appropriate for the students who will be participating, taking into account such factors
26 as the students’ age, maturity level, and intellectual capacity. In addition,
27 administrators must choose field trip venues where parents can be comfortable having
28 their children attend.
7
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1 By the time CUSD administrators made the decision not to send student field
2 trips to Riley’s Farm, both Mr. Riley and the venue itself had already become lightning
3 rods for political and social controversy. (See, e.g., Defendants’ Request for Judicial
4 Notice, Exh. A (“These tweets sparked social media outcry against owner of Riley’s
5 Farm in Oak Glen,” Redlands Daily Facts, Sept. 5, 2018).) CUSD administrators were
6 well within their discretion to determine that a politically charged environment such
7 as that was not appropriate for elementary school students. The court must defer to
8 the defendants in addressing legitimate pedagogical concerns. Therefore, as a matter
9 of law, plaintiffs’ constitutional claims fail in their entirety.
10 III. CONCLUSION
11 For all of the foregoing reasons, and those further detailed in the moving and
12 reply papers, defendants respectfully request that the court enter an order dismissing
13 plaintiffs’ complaint.
14 Dated: December 17, 2018 Meyers Fozi & Dwork, LLP
15
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
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1 attached hereto:
2 Exhibit A: September 5, 2018, news article published by Redlands Daily
3 Facts, entitled “These tweets sparked social media outcry against
4 owner of Riley’s Farm in Oak Glen,” accessed at
5 https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2018/09/05/these-tweets-
6 sparked-social-media-outcry-against-owner-of-rileys-farm-in-
7 oak-glen/
8 AUTHORITY
9 A court may take judicial notice of a fact that “can be accurately and readily
10 determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” (Fed.
11 Rule of Ev. 201(b)(2).) “The court… must take judicial notice if a party requests it
12 and the court is supplied with the necessary information.” (Fed. Rule of Ev.
13 201(c)(2).)
14 Exhibit A is relevant to defendants’ argument that the political and social
15 controversy surrounding James Patrick Riley’s online political commentary predated
16 the decision by CUSD administrators not to send student field trips to Riley’s Farm.
17 Defendants therefore respectfully request that the court take judicial notice of Exhibit
18 A.
19 Dated: December 17, 2018 Meyers Fozi & Dwork, LLP
20
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EXHIBIT A
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NEWS
As the busy apple season kicks into high gear at farms around nostalgic Oak Glen, a modern-day
con ict has erupted on social media.
Facebook and Twitter users are accusing Jim Riley, a majority owner of Riley’s Farm, of posting
misogynistic and racist messages on Twitter.
In a phone call Tuesday, Sept. 4, Riley would neither con rm nor deny he owned the @riley909
account under the name James Patrick Riley.
That account has been removed since screenshots purporting to be tweets from it started gaining
steam on Facebook over the weekend.
“What is this country coming to if a girl can’t even use her bosoms to smack customers and then
sue the president for unwanted sexual advances? #StormyDaniels” read a screenshot dated July
12, 2018.
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Riley refused to answer if the account was his, and repeatedly referred to a statement posted
Tuesday on the farm’s website before hanging up.
“In our case, the detractors have taken it upon themselves to post shameful and downright false
comments about my character based on their reading of tweets taken out of context,” the
statement reads in part.
Critics who shared the screenshots on social media beginning last week encouraged others to
stay away from the farm, known for its u-pick apples and living history programs.
The Riley’s Farm ap started shortly after calls for a boycott of In-N-Out Burger began circulating
on Twitter following news that the company had donated $25,000 to the California Republican
Party.
In a public Facebook post Thursday, Aug. 30, Elizabeth Adams posted screenshots of @riley909’s
tweets, calling them “racist, homophobic, misogynistic, obnoxious,” adding “maybe there are
better places to spend your money this fall.”
By midday Wednesday, Sept. 5, Adams’ post had been shared more than 1,300 times.
Deana Olson, who shared some of the same screenshots on Twitter, said her family had been
planning to go to Riley’s Farm, but after reading the tweets she decided it is not someplace she
wants to take her children.
“You can say whatever you want to say any time you want to say it,” she said when reached by
phone Tuesday, “but there are going to be consequences to the things that you say.”
She said she was particularly bothered by a tweet about white supremacy: “White supremacy?”
Case 5:18-cv-02185-JGB-SHK
the tweet read. “You mean thoseDocument
3 guys who 30-1 Filed
live in two 12/17/18
different Page
counties 6 of 7 IfPage
in Arkansas? there’sID
a #:180
problem in America today it’s BLACK supremacy. Farrakhan, Obama, Lebron James, etc. Typical
brain dead feminist.”
She said two of her ve children have been to the farm as part of school eld trips, and she plans
to talk to the district, Menifee Union School District in Riverside County, about curtailing their
trips there.
“… my political and spiritual convictions are precisely that: mine,” Riley said in the statement on
his website. “They don’t affect adversely the way the apples grow on the trees or the content of
our living history programs. I routinely purchase products from people who have dramatically
different perspectives on the world, and I serve people, with love and respect, even when I don’t
agree with them.”
No one answered the phone at Riley’s Apple Farm on Tuesday and an employee at Riley’s at Los
Rios Rancho said that farm is not owned by Jim Riley.
In two separate Facebook posts Wednesday, Riley’s Apple Farm and Riley’s at Los Rios Rancho
con rmed they are not af liated with Riley’s Farm.
“We have not had an association with that enterprise for 18 years,” the post from Riley’s Apple
Farm reads in part. “We advertise via a website under the name Riley’s Apple Farm but do not use
the internet to publish political views of any kind.”
Riley’s at Los Rios Rancho, meanwhile, tried to clear up confusion about which members of the
Riley family own what. In its post, Riley’s at Los Rios Rancho said its owners prefer to keep
business and politics separate.
“We nd that it creates unnecessary division and contention where we would far rather share
community and a Christ-like love to all,” the post reads in part.
As for attendance at Riley’s Farm possibly being hurt by a boycott, a post on the company’s
Facebook page on Monday, Sept. 3, reported that Labor Day weekend sales hit an all-time record,
and are 35 percent above last year’s numbers.
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Declaration of Service
I, the undersigned, declare: That I am over the age of eighteen years and not
a party to the case; I am employed in, and am a resident of, the County of San Diego,
California, where the service occurred; and my business address is: 1808 Aston
Avenue, Suite 100, Carlsbad, California 92008.
Counsel for Plaintiffs, Riley’s American Heritage Farms and James Patrick Riley
I declare under penalty of perjury, pursuant to the laws of the United States of
America and the State of California, that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed
December 17, 2018, in Carlsbad, California.
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