Griswold v. Driscoll
Griswold et al. v. Driscoll et al., is an important First Amendment case involving censorship from school reference materials, as a result of political pressure placed on school authorities. On behalf of a high school student, two high school teachers, and an umbrella cultural organization, a group of lawyers, including Harvey, filed suit in U.S. District Court on October 26, 2005.
The first round of litigation concluded when U.S. District Judge Wolf dismissed the case in June 2009. Disagreeing with Judge Wolf's analysis, the student and faculty plaintiffs continued their efforts, and in October 2009 the team filed an appeal in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund each filed briefs of amici curiae in support of the plaintiffs.
Central to this case is it's chronology. The curricular guide, after the routine process of public input, included sources on both sides of the ongoing controversy: those who claim the deaths of Ottoman Armenians during World War I legally constituted genocide, and those who, while not denying the tragedy, dispute the genocide label. After these competing historical interpretations were approved by educational experts, high-ranking public officials pressured the Massachusetts Board of Education to remove material questioning whether "genocide" was an apt description. The board capitulated to this political interference and excised all contra-genocide sources from the curricular guide. Thus, even as debate on the "genocide" label rages in Washington, Massachusetts students are led to believe that the events are settled history.
Why is this chronology important? Griswold v. Driscoll is not about the inclusion of any and every conceivable argument in public schools; instead, the case aims to stop the exclusion of educator-approved material by way of political pressure. In many ways, as plaintiffs elaborate in their First Circuit brief, the case mirrors an important 1982 Supreme Court case involving the removal of books from a school library (Island Trees School District Board of Education v. Pico). Justice William J. Brennan, outlining the court's rationale on limiting local school boards' ability to ban books, wrote:
[N]othing in our decision today affects in any way the discretion of a local school board to choose books to add to the libraries of their schools. Because we are concerned in this case with the suppression of ideas, our holding today affects only the discretion to remove books. In brief, we hold that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. [Citation omitted]
In the Griswold case, plaintiffs contend that the curricular guide--a collation of material which students and teachers can use to supplement their course instruction--is akin to a school library. As more brick and mortar libraries "go digital," the ultimate fate of the case will have a significant impact upon how the First Amendment is applied in the 21st century.
In a decision penned by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's ruling.
Photograph by Elsa Dorfman