When Self-Defense Is Not An Adequate Defense
Jon Crawford, Ph. D., J.D.
Assistant Professor of Educational Administration
"He started it! I was only defending myself!" That was Brett N.’s lament when he learned he was being suspended from St. Charles East High School for fighting. After unsuccessfully challenging the suspension Brett’s father, an attorney, filed a lawsuit against school officials. [1] The Complaint alleged "enforcement of the Board’s disciplinary policy prohibiting self-defense violated Brett’s constitutional right to bodily integrity . . . ." [2]
On December 20, 2007, Brett found himself in a fistfight after another student physically attacked him at school. [3] After school officials quelled the skirmish, Shawn Burke, the St. Charles East High School Dean of Students, placed both combatants on a five-day out-of-school suspension. Dean Burke indicated that Brett’s assertion that he did not provoke the altercation and fought only in self-defense was immaterial. [4] This was because the School Board had a zero-tolerance policy on fighting. The policy did not differentiate between students mutually engaged in fighting and students who fought in self-defense after being attacked, all pugilists were subject to disciplinary consequences. [5]
School officials responded to the lawsuit by filing a motion to dismiss. In analyzing the dismissal motion Judge Robert W. Gettleman applied the well-established guideline that all allegations made by the complaining party, in this case Brett N. and his father, are considered true and viewed in the light most favorable to Brett. [6] In other words the court accepted Brett’s claim that he did not provoke the altercation and fought only in self-defense.
Generally federal courts presume statutes, regulations, and policies, including school board policies, are valid unless they interfere with a fundamental constitutional right. As a result the central issue framed by Brett’s lawsuit was "whether a high school student has a fundamental right to defend himself from physical attack while at school." [7]
In two previous cases, both addressing self-defense in the prison context, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concluded the right to self-defense was not a fundamental right. [8] Judge Gettleman was not persuaded that a different conclusion should be applied within the school setting. [9] Therefore, Judge Gettleman applied a rationale basis test to determine whether the zero-tolerance policy would pass Constitutional muster. [10]
Under the rational basis test the challenged policy would be upheld if it bore a relational relation to a legitimate goal or purpose. [11] School officials argued that the "ultimate purpose" of the policy was " to maintain a peaceful and orderly environment in the schools." [12] Specifically school officials asserted the policy acted to minimize violence by deterring the escalation of fights, "even if merely in self-defense." [13] These arguments caused Judge Gettleman to grant the School District’s motion to dismiss. [14]
The student and his father also argued the policy was "impermissibly vague" because it failed to distinguish between students who mutually engaged in fights and those students who fought only to protect themselves. [15] Because the policy was publicly available and expressly stated that students who fought on school grounds, even in self-defense, would be subject to disciplinary consequences, the vagueness challenge was also unsuccessful. [16] Though not cited in the Brett N. decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit when assessing whether a provision in Maine Township South High School’s student disciplinary rules was unconstitutionally vague stated a "school’s disciplinary rules need not be drafted as narrowly or with the same precision as criminal statutes." [17]
The take home messages from this decision are the following. School officials should include language in student discipline policies and handbooks explaining the purpose or goal of the policy or rule. Also, the policy or rule should be published and readily available for examination by both students and parents. Note, at the time this article was written the time period within which the student and his father could seek appellate review of the decision had not yet expired.
[1] Brett N. v. Community Unit School District No. 303, No. 08-C-3092, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12444 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 18, 2009).
[2] Id. at 2.
[3] Id. at 3-4.
[4] Id. at 4-5.
[5] Id. at 12.
[6] Id. at 5.
[7] Id. at 8.
[8] Id. at 8-9, citing Rowe v. DeBruyn , 17 F.3d 1047, 1052 (7th Cir. 1994) and
Scruggs v. Jordan, 485 F.3d 934, 938-39 (7th Cir. 2007).
[9] Id. at 9.
[10] Id. at 10.
[11] Id. at 10, (citations omitted).
[12] Id. at 10.
[13] Id. at 10-11.
[14] Id. at 11.
[15] Id. at 12.
[16] Id.
[17] Wiemerslage v. Maine Township High School District 207, 29 F.3d 1149,
1152 (7th Cir. 1994) (citation omitted).