O.C. Students in a Lawsuit State of Mind

One day he was practicing for a big football game. The next Michael Carter was tackling the legal system, eventually claiming in a lawsuit he was wrongly kicked out of his all-boy Catholic high school for accusing female teachers of “femi-Nazi tactics.”

Carter says it’s a matter of free speech. Since he sued Servite High School in Anaheim, the Huntington Beach teen-ager has made headlines and received support from Rush Limbaugh, the talk show host who coined the phrase Carter says got him in trouble during a school campaign speech. People now stop Carter for autographs and he has coined a message of his own:

“Question everything,” he tells them. “Don’t be afraid to speak out.”

Carter, whose case is nearing trial in Orange County Superior Court, is part of a recent wave of students who are not just speaking out at school--they are hiring lawyers.

While attorneys, school and court officials don’t keep statistics on such lawsuits, many say they believe the number of local cases against schools are rising, from disputes over schoolyard injuries and special education services to complaints that school administrators are trampling basic freedoms.

In recent months, a Mission Viejo teen-ager went to court claiming a teacher violated his constitutional liberties by disciplining him for wearing a devil mascot logo on his letter jacket. Another South County boy called a news conference to allege he was assaulted by a teacher who thought he had been hiding dice. And in another case, a former Newport Harbor High School student sued over what she considered the outrageous and illegal fees of joining her school’s cheerleading squad.

“Ten years ago, people would ask me, ‘What do schools need an attorney for?’ ” said attorney Geraldine Jaffe, of the Orange County Department of Education. “Nobody has asked me that in years.”

Jaffe attributes the apparent rise to the notion that “school districts are truly microcosms of what’s going on in society.”

Students, their parents and their lawyers have other ideas, talking of arrogance and stubborn attitudes on the part of administrators and supportive Baby Boomer parents who fought for their own rights as students in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Strict zero-tolerance disciplinary policies involving weapons, alcohol and drugs, along with changing state and federal law involving special education, also are contributing to litigation, lawyers say.

Whatever the causes, the cases and legal threats are taking a toll from schools, especially administrators who are “getting yelled at from every corner,” said David Larsen, an Orange County attorney who often represents school districts.

“A lot more demands are being placed on people that are time consuming and diverting attention away from the basic education programs they are trying to provide,” he said.

The threat of civil and criminal action, as well as the potential of losing their credentials and jobs, is putting teachers in “quadruple jeopardy,” said Tommye Hutto, with the California Teachers Assn.

“There is a chilling effect,” Hutto said. “Teachers are more cautious and less willing to take risks with students.

“It’s not good for teachers at all,” she added. “It’s not good for students either.”

School officials say that mistakes can happen and some claims are legitimate, but contend that most of the disputes could be resolved short of the courtroom.

The concerns are just as real for private schools, which have fewer resources to defend themselves in court than larger public districts, said Father Gerald Horan, president of Servite High School.

“I think it’s unfortunate that any time a person doesn’t get their way, the first thing they threaten to do is sue,” Horan said.

“If we could hear and appreciate another person’s perspective, if we could respect the fact that another person feels differently, we could make so much more headway. The minute you threaten to sue, you’re in a standoff.”

Students involved in some local cases say their decision to sue was not made lightly, and they too suffer a heavy price for fighting back.

“This was the last resort,” said Heather Delaney, the 17-year-old former cheerleader who is suing Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

Among other things, Delaney alleges she was illegally charged more than $1,700 in one year for her uniforms, coaches and other expenses, fees that boys don’t have to pay in their athletic programs.

Delaney said she has lost friends since making her allegations and felt so “unwelcome” at her school that she transferred to another for her senior year. She fought back tears as she talked about what’s happened to her final year of high school.

“I’ve been trying to focus not on what I’m missing, but what I will be accomplishing,” Delaney said during as recent interview in her family’s living room, her attorney seated at her side. “My goal is that the district will become more sensitive and cheerleading will be more fair and equitable for everyone.”

Her lawyer, John S. Roth, declined to discuss the family’s arrangement for paying for his services. Delaney said her parents are backing her up “100%” in her lawsuit.

“My parents are just glad I’m having the courage to do this,” she said.

Attorneys representing the school district could not be reached for comment before press time.

In the past, school officials have said they did nothing wrong, and said they tried to work with the Delaney family for six to eight months, enlisting a district committee to review the complaints through an internal hearing process, in the hopes of resolving the dispute.

Delaney’s allegations recall another much-publicized lawsuit brought in 1990 by a former Irvine cheerleader, Melissa Fontes, who alleged that girls on her Woodbridge High School pep squad were held to a higher academic standard than the male athletes they cheered.

Fontes sued to have the policy changed--but did not seek any damages from the school.

A state appellate court agreed with her, overturning a 1992 Orange County Superior Court decision that had gone against Fontes. The state Supreme Court eventually allowed the appellate ruling to stand, but ruled that the decision should not set a legal precedent for other cases.

Attorney Bonnie K. Lawley is still trying to make the district pay $37,000 in attorney fees, which she says is just a fraction of the actual cost.

She did not charge the Fonteses, but the family paid close to $5,000 in basic court costs that come with filing motions and other actions.

Fontes, now 21 and a philosophy major at an Oregon college, said the experience ruined her memories of high school, although she doesn’t regret going to court. She’s considering going to law school.

“It was one of the most significant learning experiences I’ve had,” she said. “It really tested my principles and my integrity.”

Lawley said she was so committed to the Fontes case because she had faced a similar problem with her own daughter’s middle school cheerleading program. But in her daughter’s case, Lawley said, the school changed its policy without a court fight, something she wishes others would do.

“I’d like to see educators develop more open minds in terms of looking at the requirements they set and how they affect young people,” she said.

Cecilia Carter, whose son Michael is fighting to be readmitted to Servite High School, said the decision to sue the Catholic school was a difficult one, and one made possible only through an offer of free help from an attorney with the Los Angeles-based Individual Rights Foundation.

“It’s a very serious, painful situation,” Cecilia Carter said during a recent interview at her family’s Catholic supplies shop in Newport Beach. “But above everything else, it’s a First Amendment issue.”

Attorney John Howard, who is representing Michael Carter, said he believes many students and their parents find themselves faced with a “profound arrogance” on the part of school administrators.

“It’s good that kids are finding out that they have rights,” Howard said. “It’s probably a better civics lesson than anything they can get in school.”

Carter, 18, filed his lawsuit last fall, contending that administrators ordered him to undergo psychological counseling after he made the “femi-Nazi” reference during a campaign speech toward the end of the previous school year. When he refused to comply with the order, contending it was improper discipline, school officials denied his readmission.

Servite officials say the Carters and their attorney have misrepresented what happened, and that Carter was not asked to attend counseling because of the “femi-Nazi” reference. They contend the statement reflected a pattern of behavior teachers found “offensive and disrespectful.”

“Clearly we did not punish him for what he said in his speech,” Servite President Horan said.

Carter said the lawsuit has made his studies difficult, recalling one night that he was up until 2 a.m. trying to get written verification from his former classmates about the contents of his campaign speech. The next morning he had to take a college-entrance exam.

“It really has affected my studies in a big way,” said Carter, who spent his senior year at a public high school. “I really couldn’t focus. It was always in the back of my head, kicking at me.”

Carter has graduated from high school and is now working at his family’s store and helping out as an assistant to a priest.

He said he is continuing to seek readmission to Servite to vindicate his name, and to improve his chance of getting into a Catholic college.

A judge has denied one request that Carter be readmitted. A jury trial is set for February.

Other cases have come in response to newly stringent discipline policies at public schools.

Irvine attorney Jack A. Fleischli said he has handled three cases involving students who faced possible expulsion for a single violation after having previously unblemished records.

He cited an Anaheim Hills honor student who was forced to transfer to another high school last year after distributing a controversial underground newspaper. School officials said the paper made “obscene” and “defamatory” remarks about school employees.

The student sued, but later dropped the case after settling for a voluntary transfer to a school that offered the college-bound academic programs he needed, Fleischli said.

Fleischli said he believes “zero-tolerance” policies that mandate expulsions for various offenses are a “knee-jerk reaction to complex problems” that have increased risk of lawsuits.

“It’s like the ‘three strikes’ law,” he said, referring to California’s new law requiring life prison terms for three-time felons. “It’s an easy rule to make and apply, but it’s not great when you start applying it to individuals who do not seem to deserve the consequences they received.”

Fleischli said he has noticed a common thread among student clients. “The kids are all fighters,” he said. “They won’t give up. They’re aggressive in their attitude and they have a strong self-image. Their parents are not the kind who will simply bow away from a confrontation.”

While Orange County educators and lawyers cite an increase in school lawsuits, that may not be the case elsewhere in the country. Perry A. Zirkel, a professor of education and law at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, said his research shows a nationwide decrease in the rate of most state and federal education cases being filed. He said that more cases nationwide are being won by school districts, reversing trends of the 1960s and 1970s when student lawsuits sparked several landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings establishing student rights approaching those of adults.

Zirkel, however, said he has noted two areas--special education and disputes over religion--where the number of cases are consistently increasing everywhere.

Locally, school officials and their lawyers have stepped up efforts to head off disputes before they land in court.

Since 1982, preventive law has become a major service of the Orange County Department of Education, where staff attorneys offer advice, issue legal opinions and hold workshops to help educators avoid problems and resolve disputes.

Sexual harassment, child welfare, dress codes and search and seizure of student property were the topics of some recent workshops, said attorney Jaffe, a member of the department’s schools legal services office.

“Our office is busier than ever,” said Ron Wenkart, general counsel for the education department.

Wenkart said most disputes are settled without ever going to court and administrators are eager to make changes necessary to avoid problems.

“We have made changes,” he said. “We have resolved these issues. You only read about the ones that don’t get resolved.”