Kristoffersson v. Port Jefferson Union Free School District

MEMORANDUM & ORDER Plaintiff Madeleine Kristoffersson, mother of R.R., a student at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School in Port Jefferson, New York, alleges that Defendants violated R.R.’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech, as well as R.R.’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, when they refused to publish a poem submitted by R.R. to the high school’s literary magazine. Plaintiff asserts constitutional and statutory claims on R.R.’s behalf under New York state law as well. She seeks compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs. Currently before the Court are Defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, (ECF No. 21), and Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment on her federal claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a). (ECF No. 36.) For the following reasons, Defendants’ motion is GRANTED, Plaintiff’s motion is DENIED, and the complaint is DISMISSED. I. BACKGROUND A. Facts In April 2021, R.R., then a tenth-grade student at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School, wrote a poem titled, “Derek Chauvin’s Ode To George Floyd: A Dark Sonnet.” (Compl.

4, 22, ECF No. 1.) The poem is reproduced in its entirety below. From Momma’s hands, you had not any chance. The street, the ‘hood made you so young ashamed To stand tall, to control your circumstance. “Black man, it’s you we’ll crack,” white men proclaimed; “Stay down,” they say, your fate is in our hands. Obey, ok, obey me, I’m the cop Who kneels upon your naked soul, who stands On top your darkened head until you stop Your sorry cry for mamma; take no breath, I bring justice here, pressed upon your neck. If I decide, you now face certain death, A fate deserved, ‘cuz you passed a bad check. You can’t breathe? Then cease your black man drama, I will make you weep for “Mamma! Mamma!” (Id. 23.) R.R. “intended the sonnet ironically,…to reflect the contemptuous racial hatred demonstrated by a white figure of authority for a helpless African American,” “to capture the deeply bred racially motivated cause of the death of George Floyd,” and “to convey the intense reason for the nation-wide reaction to Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd” on May 25, 2020. (Id.