Joe Jarosz
Northeast News
March 3, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The Kansas City Public Schools and the American Civil Liberties Union have settled a federal lawsuit the ACLU filed last year against the KCPS on behalf of two Lincoln College Preparatory Academy students.

Last November, while Missouri Governor Jay Nixon paid a visit to Lincoln College Prep, 13 students in the line of sight of Gov. Nixon, stood up from their seats and raised their hands over their head, silently protesting the police shooting in Ferguson, Mo, and the governor’s handling of the situation in Ferguson, Mo., in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Daniel Wilson. The students were escorted out of the assembly by a faculty member. The students alleged that their rights were violated.

In a press release from the KCPS, the suit was settled by mutual agreement, with no admission of liability by KCPS. No money was paid to either student — two of the 13 students filed the lawsuit — nor were attorneys’ fees paid by KCPS to the ACLU. The KCPS has maintained that the students were not being disciplined for standing with their hands raised in silent protest, but because they refused to sit down after being told to do so a number of times by an assistant principal.

The students were then escorted out of the auditorium and into the school’s office. Following the student protest, Lincoln Prep Principal Joe Hesman and Vice Principal Steve Evans decided to discipline the students by requiring them to attend “Saturday School,” a form of detention. KCPS Superintendent R. Stephen Green, Ed.D., supported this decision. The release stated that the KCPS has maintained since the incident that the students were blocking the view of a number of television cameras and photographers who were covering Nixon’s speech. It was their refusal to follow the directions of a school official and not the protest that prompted the students to be removed from the auditorium and later disciplined.

Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri, said in a press release that the ACLU is pleased Lincoln Prep administrators agreed to withdraw the discipline of the students and remove any mention of it from their permanent records.

“Students do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter a school building,” Rothert said.