An offer to meet face to face with Superintendent Wes Smith just
days after the now infamous Cinco de Mayo incident at Live Oak High
School was declined by the parents of the four boys who were sent
home from school for wearing American flag T-shirts.
An offer to meet face to face with Superintendent Wes Smith just days after the now infamous Cinco de Mayo incident at Live Oak High School was declined by the parents of the four boys who were sent home from school for wearing American flag T-shirts.
What happened May 5 rattled Morgan Hill and unhinged Live Oak. On May 7, Smith publicly apologized to the parents and to the community for the decision made by Live Oak administrators to send the four students home – and denying their freedom of expression, the lawsuit states. It’s a decision that Smith said is contrary to district policy.
Now, a federal court will decide if the Morgan Hill Unified School District must create a permanent policy that would allow students to wear patriotic clothing freely and if the district must pay for the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees.
The parents of three of the four involved students filed a civil rights lawsuit June 23 claiming that the school district and Live Oak Vice Principal Miguel Rodriguez and Principal Nick Boden infringed on the boys’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
On the evening of May 5, the students’ parents met with Assistant Superintendent Jay Totter at the school district headquarters. The details of that meeting are not public, but Smith said he asked to sit down with the students and parents that week. His proposition was declined and he was told by the parents that they were discussing a lawsuit with an attorney.
“We’re not surprised at all that they filed a lawsuit” Smith said. The district was “fully aware” of the parents’ intentions since the days following May 5, he said.
The lawsuit was delivered to the school district Monday. Smith returned from vacation today.
“I wanted to meet the boys face to face and answer any questions they had and give them the chance to talk about it,” Smith said. That meeting never happened.
What began as a display of their patriotism, the boys said on May 5, grew into a national controversy. TV news cameras from every outlet in the Bay Area, including helicopters, as well as national news outlets such as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC were camped outside Live Oak May 6 and May 7. The Internet blogosphere was inundated with debates over the First Amendment, illegal immigration laws and the racial tension in Morgan Hill.
The four students – Dominic Maciel, 15, Matt Dariano, 16, Daniel Galli, 16, and Austin Carvalho, 16 – arrived to school on Cinco de Mayo dressed in T-shirts depicting American flags and red, white and blue patriotic clothing. The day before, Boden announced that all flags from both Mexico and America were not allowed on campus on Cinco de Mayo. Still, many students were seen wearing red, green and white after school May 5.
The boys said that day that Rodriguez called their attire “incendiary” and they were singled out because they were easy to spot as a cluster of red, white and blue. After being sent to the office, Boden ordered them to turn their T-shirts inside out or go home.
The lawsuit asks that the school district implement a permanent policy. Smith said the district’s policy has never included denying students the right to wear patriotic clothing but that the decision on May 5 was “an error by administrators.”
On Live Oak’s website the dress code policy states that “any clothing or decoration which detracts from the learning environment is prohibited. The school has the right to request that any student dressing inappropriately for school will change into other clothes, be sent home to change, and/or be subject to disciplinary action.”
Boden said May 5 that the decision was made to prevent any threat of violence on campus – a notion that has been supported by dozens of Live Oak students who said Hispanic students and white students were taunting one another that day.
The lawsuit claims that the boys were imposed with “content- and viewpoint-based restrictions” and the district’s policy is “overbroad.”
The message the plaintiffs hope to send – if the lawsuit is successful – is that school officials cannot show preference for the content of one group’s message over the content of another group’s message, according to the lawsuit.
The school district is still in the process of acquiring a lawyer to represent them in the lawsuit, which was filed in the San Jose division of the Northern District of California.
As for Smith and the district, their focus is on the upcoming school year. Before Live Oak students were released for summer vacation they were given a writing prompt that asked them to write down their feelings related to the incident and the campus climate. It’s part of the culturally conscience conversation, Smith said, and just one part of the ongoing effort by the school district to educate students on tolerance as well as their civil rights.
“Like I’ve said before, we can uncover greatness from this controversy,” Smith said.
