Plaintiffs filed a federal court complaint against a school district, its superintendent and a teacher (collectively, “the District”) for denying a student permission to attend a high school class trip abroad. According to the complaint, the student was told he could not attend due to his grades and attendance, and because he “would be a liability.” Plaintiffs claimed a violation of their equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, along with unspecified civil rights violations. On behalf of the District, Webster Szanyi moved to dismiss the complaint at the outset. Plaintiffs opposed the motion and cross-moved to amend the complaint to assert a First Amendment retaliation claim, among other proposed amendments. The Court agreed with the District’s argument that a student’s “exclusion from a particular course, event or activity is of no constitutional import.” The Court analogized the facts at issue to a line of decisions holding that students have no protectible property interest in participating in specific school events or activities, such as interscholastic athletics, marching band and foreign language programs. Plaintiffs also failed to identify any similarly situated students in support of their Equal Protection claim, and the Court agreed with the District’s argument in that regard as well. Lastly, the Court denied plaintiffs’ cross-motion to amend as futile and rejected Plaintiffs’ proposed First Amendment claim because they failed to identify the alleged protected speech or conduct at issue. Accordingly, the District’s motion was granted and the complaint was dismissed in its entirety prior to discovery. Michael McClaren, Ryan Smith and Heather Dechert represented the District.
