Indiana school's recording ban is an assault on parents' rights

Indianapolis Star

a day ago

It's back-to-school season, and parents and kids around the country are prepping for the inevitable transition from summer fun to the fall grind.
For one Indiana mom, the stakes are higher than normal.
Nicole Graves has sued her school district, Whitley County Consolidated Schools in Columbia City, Indiana, in federal court with help from the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute. She alleges that her First and 14th Amendment rights were violated in a series of interactions with school administrators.
All four of Graves' children still attend district schools, and she's rightly concerned – given how she's been treated – about potential retaliation from the administration.
Here's what happened: According to the Goldwater Institute, in April 2024, Graves' seventh-grade daughter 'filmed her school bus driver walking up and down the aisle, smacking his belt against his hand with his pants falling and his underwear visible.'
After that incident on her daughter's school bus, Graves set up a meeting with the school principal. She recorded the meeting because she wanted an accurate record of what transpired.
When Graves wasn't satisfied with what the principal said, she posted the recording on social media.
That angered school administrators, who contacted her via letter and told her she broke school policy by recording the meeting without permission. Even though Graves had been unaware of the policy, she was banned from school grounds and restricted in her communication with staff, unless she got written permission from the superintendent's office.
While that absurd punishment has expired, the lawsuit seeks to overturn the ban on recording, which remains in place.
'This is not fun for me,' Graves told IndyStar. 'This is not something I ever thought I would have to fight for. But I am more than happy to stand up and fight and talk to who I need to talk to to get things to change because I think it's important for all the families in this school district.'
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The complaint argues that the school's recording policy and the no-trespass and communication orders violate the First Amendment, 'which protects the right to record government officials in the performance of their duties.'
Adam Shelton, the Goldwater staff attorney working with Graves, says these kinds of recordings fall squarely under the First Amendment.
'The First Amendment protects more than just speech, it also protects conduct that is inherently expressive and conduct that cannot be divorced from the speech creation process, like recording,' Shelton observed on X. 'This is especially true in situations involving parents and school officials.'
While Democrats and teachers unions may think they know what's best for children, that's simply false.
Parents do.
This lawsuit also alleges that the school district violated Graves' constitutional right to direct her children's education.
'The orders also violate the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, which protects the fundamental rights of parents to control and direct the education and upbringing of their children,' the complaint states. 'This right is the oldest right that the Supreme Court has recognized as one of the 'liberties' protected by the due process clause.'
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Graves' case reminded me of one I've written about before, regarding another Midwest mom who was shunned by her child's school district.
Sandra Hernden of Michigan sued her school district in 2022 for violating her constitutional rights. She had complained to the school board about its COVID-19 policies in 2020, and board members responded by contacting her employer and then reporting her to the Biden administration's U.S. Department of Justice (remember how the DOJ went after parents as 'domestic terrorists'?). Hernden's case is ongoing.
Steve Delie, an attorney with the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation that is representing Hernden, made oral arguments in June before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
'Even if we assume there was no monetarily compensable injury, you're still talking about government officials taking advantage of their elected positions of power to silence opposition,' Delie told the court. 'That can't be the way society functions.'
No, it can't.
Kudos to these moms for their bravery and for standing up for parental rights everywhere.