Lakeville Area Schools OKs $30,000 settlement on Black Lives Matter posters
In a lawsuit filed more than two years ago, a group of residents alleged their First Amendment rights were violated when the school district allowed posters featuring 'Black Lives Matter' to be placed in classrooms, while not permitting the display of posters that read 'All Lives Matter' or 'Blue Lives Matter.'
In a 5-1 vote, with board member Amber Cameron absent and member Carly Anderson opposed, the board approved the settlement April 8.
'We appreciate the many different perspectives shared. Lakeville Area Schools remains committed to continuing to partner with our families and community to provide a safe, respectful, engaging, rigorous, and collaborative learning environment where every student belongs, is valued and can succeed,' the district said in a statement provided Wednesday.
Ahead of voting, Anderson said she felt the settlement approval was a premature decision, referencing the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in June to reverse the lawsuit's dismissal by a lower court.
'The Eighth Circuit decision was based on assuming that everything that the claimants were claiming could be possible in any scenario. And so to me, I believe we should have gone through the discovery process, which would have meant gathering all the information relevant to the case. In that situation, what I've understood from our legal counsel is that we are on very good footing, that they felt like what our district did was within the grounds of government speech, and that we had an excellent case,' Anderson said.
In January, the Lakeville school board voted to remove the series of posters from district buildings.
The posters are part of a series of 'inclusive' posters ordered by the district in 2021, two of which said 'Black Lives Matter,' and were distributed to staff members when requested.
Upper Midwest Law Center represented plaintiffs Bob and Cynthia Cajune, Kalynn Kay Aaker, and Aaker's minor children in the lawsuit, which argued that the district violated their First Amendment rights 'by engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.'
'With the Eighth Circuit's decision clearly signaling that the school district's policy was constitutionally unsound, Lakeville Schools wisely reversed their policy and removed the posters from district facilities,' Upper Midwest Law Center said in a statement on its website. 'Because that was what the plaintiffs had sought in the lawsuit, they agreed to dismiss their claims in the settlement in return for the District paying $30,000 in legal fees to the Upper Midwest Law Center.'
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