David Benoit Mech is a math tutor in Florida, operating under the name “The Happy/Fun Math Tutor.” Now that’s a valuable guy—someone who can make math both “fun” and “happy.” The man is well equipped to provide these services. He has a master’s degree and is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Florida. Mr. Mech provided his tutoring services to kids in the Palm Beach County School District, and also supported the district through financial contributions.
The Palm Beach County School District came up with an innovative way to honor and thank people like the Fun Math Tutor. It adopted a policy to recognize “athletic sponsors and other business partners” by displaying banners on school district property that recognized the sponsors. The school maintained control over the banners. They were to be of a uniform size, color and font and would not include photographs or large logos. Just a simple “thank you” to the sponsor.
So the Happy Fun Math Tutor must have been pleased to see his banner hanging on the fences of three schools in the district. However, some parents did a bit of investigation and found out that the Fun Math guy was also the owner of Dave Pounder Productions, a company that formerly produced pornography. It turns out the Happy Math guy was himself a former porn star who had appeared in hundreds of films. This bothered some of the parents in the community, especially when they discovered that the math business shared the same mailing address as Dave Pounder Productions.
The district took the banners down. The Fun Math guy sued, alleging a violation of the First Amendment.
The court ruled for the school on this one, relying on the Supreme Court’s recent decision, Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. That’s the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that specialty license plates were “government speech” rather than the expression of the owner of the vehicle. Therefore, Texas could ban a specialty plate featuring the Confederate flag.
The federal court saw this case as much the same thing. The banners were “government speech.” If the Palm Beach County School District did not want to be associated with the Fun Math guy, it was permitted to make that decision. The school banners implicitly indicated that the school approved of the company, and the school maintained control of the message on the banners. Therefore, this was “government speech” and did not implicate, much less violate, Mr. Mech’s constitutional rights.
The case is Mech v. School Board of Palm Beach County, Florida, decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on November 23, 2015.
DAWG BONE: FIND WAYS TO RECOGNIZE YOUR BUSINESS PARTNERS THAT DON’T CREATE LEGAL PROBLEMS.