Four years later, national media focus could shift to Live Oak High School as the 2014 Cinco de Mayo holiday approaches. Hubbub arrived shortly after a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court ruling recharged opposing views on First Amendment rights and student safety.
Two public demonstrations are planned in front of the northeast Morgan Hill school for May 5, and some current students said they feel caught in the middle.
“It’s really unnecessary. We don’t really care for it that much,” said LOHS senior Amy Guzman. “We actually don’t even want it happening because it’s kind of embarrassing how it all got blown up.”
During the April 15 MHUSD school board meeting, a handful of parents voiced their concerns over having the Gilroy-Morgan Hill Patriots picketing as children arrive for school.
“My concern is the safety of my kids,” parent Ray Morales said. “It’s extremely scary what’s going to happen.”
Attorney Juan Lopez, who created the WethePeople MH Facebook page to organize a “Unity, Peace and Respect” counter-rally to that of the Patriots, has a child attending LOHS. He’s also concerned about the safety of students coming to school May 5 after visiting the Patriots Facebook page and reading several threatening and racial comments made toward Mexican people.
“I needed to get the word out there, and social media is a way to bring people together,” Lopez said. “My concern is the safety of the kids … I think the venue (the Patriots) chose is inappropriate.”
Patriots’ President Georgine Scott-Codiga, also speaking at the MHUSD meeting, tried to assure the audience members that her group is non-violent and the purpose of their rally is “to get our message out that we all have a right to freedom of speech.”
None of the current LOHS students attended the school in 2010 when, on May 5 two administrators asked four former students wearing American patriotic T-shirts to take them off or turn them inside-out due to an escalating conflict with some Hispanic classmates. They were later sent home from school.
A firestorm of media attention quickly followed as legal experts debated whether the appropriate action was taken by school officials to diffuse a potentially volatile situation among the two groups of students or if they violated those students’ First Amendment rights.
Later in the courtroom in 2011, a federal judge sided with the school district. Again, this past March, the Ninth Circuit Court backed the previous ruling. The legal battle continues, though, with an 11-judge panel of the same court expected to hear a second appeal by attorneys from the American Freedom Law Center, which vows to take the Dariano vs. the Morgan Hill Unified School District to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
The Patriots plan to be outside of LOHS at 7:30 a.m. as students arrive and again at 2:30 p.m. as students leave school.
“We are all respectable community people. We have never had a problem with the law. We respect the law. We respect the ordinances. We respect everything,” Scott-Codiga said. “We’re in support of America. We’re in support of freedom of speech. We have the right to rally on public property.”
Scott-Codiga said the derogatory comments that Lopez and others brought up were not written by members of the Patriots, rather random people who visited their Facebook page.
Her words, however, did little to quell the worries of those who spoke out Tuesday.
“I’m very concerned for the safety of our students and our faculty,” resident Noé Montoya said. “Let’s move them to another location. Let them say what they wish, but not in front of our kids and not endangering our faculty.”
Superintendent Steve Betando addressed the audience members—including about two dozen high school students attending for their civics class—on the issue, calling the debate “a true civics lesson.”
“You are going to have to try to make sense out of all of this,” said Betando to the students. “The Ninth Circuit Court made a decision. It may be hearing (the case) again, and it may be going to the Supreme Court.”
Betando then explained how school officials have been meeting with leaders of the different groups, with law enforcement and city officials to address safety concerns.
“Everybody has the same interest—student safety first,” Betando said. “We’re working with students at Live Oak about what this means for them and about what we expect from them.”
