The following editorial is my personal opinion and does not in any way reflect the viewpoint of Shipman & Goodwin.

In 1982, in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a noncommittal ruling that is perhaps even more important today than when crafted 40 years ago. The court deemed that local school boards have broad discretion in the management of school affairs but that this discretion must be exercised to comport with the “transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.”