Former students sue

Former students Scotland Yanello, Jared Pollard and their families sued the district, Principal Kevin Buchanan and Superintendent Tony Knight in May, alleging a violation of the students’ First Amendment rights.

Pollard, who graduated in June, and Yanello were tied to several anti-Semitic tweets in celebration of Adolf Hitler’s birthday in April 2014. In response, Pollard was suspended temporarily, while Yanello was discovered to have moved out of the school district without having applied for an out-of-district permit. He no longer attends the high school.

“The only connection between the suspension and removal is the anonymous email suggesting Plaintiffs [Yanello and Pollard] had engaged in racist behaviors through the tweets and retweets,” Jennifer Miller, Yanello and Pollard’s attorney, said in the official complaint. “There is no evidence that the tweets at issue were of a threatening or violent nature. The school administration, in an attempt to appease the public at large trampled the protections afforded these students under law.”

In response, Knight said that the California Education Code, as well as various court cases, made it “clear” that the school could discipline the students for the speech.

According to the administration, the students’ speech created a substantial disruption of the educational environment, allowing the school to discipline the students. This test, known as the Tinker test, was established in the Supreme Court’s 1969 decision Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.

While the Tinker decision does not mention off-campus speech, lower courts have applied this test to off-campus, online speech in recent years. In the 2010 case J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District, a U.S. District Court found that the schools may only “regulate off-campus speech if the speech causes or is reasonably likely to cause a substantial disruption of school activities.”

“This series of events has shaken the school as well as the entire school district and community,” Knight said in a May 2014 email to parents.

But in the same email, Knight said, “we found that none of [the students] harbored the level of hate in their hearts that was conveyed in those messages.”

Many Jewish students expressed their deep concerns regarding the tweets.

“As a teenager, I understand that the tweet was meant to be funny. But as a Jew, I see the tweet as being hurtful and offensive,” senior Frankie Alchanati said. “The events that the Jewish people had to undergo during the Holocaust were horrific. Sending out a tweet that celebrates the man who had caused that horrific event to happen is sad.”

Senior Michelle Grunberg, who is also Jewish, felt threatened after the tweets were published.

“After I found out about it, I didn’t think it was real… because we have such a big Jewish population and I thought people would know better,” Grunberg said. “But after I read the tweets and talked to people about it, I was actually really scared because anti-Semitism is very real on college campuses and in the world.”

However, some other students felt that the incident did not disrupt their everyday lives.

“All I really remember is people talking about [parent Elaine Baker] or [someone] sending out the email,” junior Bobby Yang said. “I don’t think anyone I know was affected by it. I didn’t even know about it right away.”

Senior Stephanie Rivera expressed a similar sentiment.

“It didn’t affect me at all,” Rivera said. “It was just a thing on Twitter.”

Both Knight and Buchanan noted that their professions open them up to legal liability.

The case is “not occupying all of our time,” Knight said. “Our attorneys are handling [it].”

In addition, the families are suing Baker, a parent (of a former Oak Park student) who they allege sent mass emails to parents making several allegations against multiple students, including Yanello and Pollard. They seek $25,000 in damages from her for “sending a false email with the intent to harm and damage the reputation of Plaintiffs [Yanello and Pollard].”

According to Knight, there is “no [legal] overlap [between the lawsuit against the school and] Elaine Baker.”

As the plaintiffs are still in discovery, a legal process by which a party continues to look for evidence, Miller declined to be interviewed.

Editor’s note: The print edition of this article, published Sept. 18, incorrectly stated that Yanello had a District of Choice permit revoked. The article also incorrectly asserted that Baker had sent mass emails to Oak Park parents, while this remains an allegation by the plaintiffs and has yet to be proven.