Subj : ACLU in the Courts: Brandi Blackbear v. Union School District No. 9 To : All From : Rachel L. Akers Date : Sun Nov 05 2000 03:48 pm A little big sorry people. But here's the 'facts' IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA Case No. ATTORNEY LIEN CLAIMED JURY TRIAL DEMANDED __________________________________________________ BRANDI BLACKBEAR a minor, acting by and through her guardians TIMOTHY BLACKBEAR, her father and TONI BLACKBEAR, her mother, Plaintiffs, vs. UNION PUBLIC SCHOOL INDEPENDENT DISTRICT NO. 9, Tulsa County, Tulsa, Oklahoma, JACK OJALA, in his individual and official capacity, CATHERINE MILLER, in her individual and official capacity, CHARLIE BUSHYHEAD, in his individual and official capacity, SANDY FRANKLIN, in her official capacity, PHILIP BARR, in his individual and official capacity, WILLIAM BRUNER, in his individual and official capacity, DEREK RADER, in his individual and official capacity, FRANK SPIEGLEBERG, in his individ ual and official capacity, and JAMES WILLIAMS, in his individual and official capacity, Defendants. __________________________________________________ COMPLAINT I COMES NOW the Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, through her guardians and next friend, Timothy Blackbear, her father, and Toni Blackbear, her mother, by and through their counsel of record, John Mack Butler and Aundrea R. Smith, for the firm John Mack Butler and Associates, and for their cause of action against the Defendants, would show the Court as follows: Jurisdiction and Venue II This action arises under the Constitution of the United States, particularly the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and under the laws of the United States, particularly the Civil Rights Act, Title 42 U.S.C.áá 1983 and 1985. III The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under the provisions of Title 28 U.S.C. áá 1331 and 1343. IV Venue is properly placed in this District Court pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C. á 1391. Parties V The Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, is a fifteen-year-old female residing in the City of Tulsa who is presently enrolled at Tulsa Union Public Schools. Timothy Blackbear is the father of Brandi Blackbear, and Toni Blackbear is the mother of Brandi Blackbear, serving as next friend and guardian ad litem for the purposes of this action. The Plaintiffs are now, and at all times mentioned, citizens of the United States of America and residents of Tulsa County, Oklahoma. VI 1. Union Public School Independent District No. 9, Tulsa County is a publicly funded school responsible for the education, welfare and well-being of all of its students. It is also the employer of all of the other Defendants listed herein. Defendant is also responsible for establishing its policies and procedures and the guidelines established and followed by its employees and is therefore a proper defendant in this case. 2. Defendant Jack Ojala is the Principal at the Union Eighth Grade Center, and is sued both in his individual and official capacity, and is responsible for establishing and implementing both official and unofficial procedures and guidelines for the eighth grade at all times pertinent hereto. 3. Defendant Catherine Miller is a speech therapist and counselor at the Union Eighth Grade Center, and is being sued in her individual and official capacity and was directly involved with Principal Jack Ojala in violating the Plaintiff's civil rights. 4. Defendant Charlie Bushyhead is Assistant Principal at Union Intermediate High School, and is sued in his individual and official capacity as an employee of Union Public School Independent District No. 9, Tulsa County, and was responsible for making policy and determining procedure and the following of the policies, both written and non-written, of the Union Public Schools. 5. Defendant Sandy Franklin is a counselor employed by the Union Public School Independent District No. 9 and is sued in her individual and official capacity. 6. Defendants Philip Barr, William Bruner, Derek Rader, Frank Spiegelberg, and James Williams are members of the school board of Tulsa Union Public Schools with the responsibility of public schools within Tulsa Union Independent School District No. 9 and are empowered to oversee the disciplining of pupils. They are being sued in both their official and individual capacity. Cause of Action VII 1. For a considerable period of time prior to April 28, 1999, the Plaintiff Brandi Blackbear had been an aspiring creative writer. She had spent a lot of time studying the novelist Stephen King and wanted to be able to write the same type of fictional horror stories that King writes. She had several notebooks containing short stories that she had written, or ideas that an aspiring young author would put down on paper and try to develop to further her career and future as a fiction writer. 2. The first incident surrounding and giving cause to the Plaintiff's civil rights cause of action occurred shortly after the Columbine High School incident in Littleton, Colorado on April 21, 1999. Much of the school administration was acting very fearfully although they had no reason to believe that a similar type of incident would occur at the Union Public Schools. 3. Sometime prior to April 28th, 1999, Catherine Miller, speech therapist and counselor for the Plaintiff, and Jack Ojala, the principal at the Eighth Grade Union Public School, had heard by way of rumor that the Plaintiff had written some short stories and that she had written something about an incident at a school. They then proceeded to interrogate and investigate the Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear. 4. Plaintiff carried a backpack with all of her school books and supplies which had been left in a locked room. On April 28, 1999, Defendants Ojala and Miller proceeded to open her backpack and search her personal effects under the guise of looking for a gun. Unable to find a gun or anything that could be considered a weapon, they confiscated all of her notes, school work, and private notebooks, read through many of the stories, and eventually came upon a story involving a fictitious shooting incident on a school bus. 5. Upon reading the Plaintiff's fictional narrative, a literary work in progress, Defendant Jack Ojala and Defendant Catherine Miller panicked and assumed that Brandi Blackbear was going to create an incident, and that the Plaintiff was a deadly threat to all of the students because of the incident at Columbine High School. 6. After reading the Plaintiff's notebook, the Defendants Ojala and Miller notified her parents and summarily informed them that she would be suspended from school. 7. On April 28, 1999, at approximately 10:15 a.m., the parents of Brandi Blackbear received a call from an official at the Union Eighth Grade Center advising them of their need to come to the school immediately because of problems with Brandi Blackbear. They had no previous notice, nor were they advised of the nature of the violation until they arrived at school. The Plaintiff was suspended for nineteen (19) days beginning April 28, 1999, and was not allowed to return to school until the first day of classes of the fall term of 1999-2000. 8. On the 29th day of April, 1999, the school held a kangaroo-type court, due process hearing consisting of school employees and including those that would not be fair and impartial to the Plaintiff. At that stage, the Plaintiff, who was basically denied due process, and her parents were advised that it was a waste of time for them to appeal the case any further. The Plaintiff's parents did not receive notice of the appeal deadline until the day of same. 9. As a result of the school officials' actions, the Plaintiff became an outcast among many of her peers and suffered extreme ridicule and harassment by other students, some even asking the Plaintiff if they were on her "hit list." 10. The Plaintiff enrolled in the 9th grade at Union Intermediate High School at the beginning of the fall term of 1999. She continued to suffer embarrassment, ridicule, and comments from other students that had been at the previous school, who had heard the rumors started by that school's officials. There were no other problems except that because of the school's suspension, the Plaintiff suffered severely in the area of math and could not properly catch up the next fall in order to continue with her education without making bad grades. 11. After the semester started in the fall of 1999, the Plaintiff discovered a book that had a section on Wicca in the school library. She started to read the book, make notes, and do some individual study. She was seen by other students with the book and some comments were made jokingly about her studying the religion of Wicca. 12. On or about the weekend prior to December 13, 1999 one of the school teachers, a Mr. Kemp, had to be admitted to the hospital on an emergency basis. The nature of his illness or disability was unknown to the Plaintiff at that time and is still unknown. 13. The second incident surrounding and giving cause to the Plaintiff's civil rights cause of action occurred on or about the 13th day of December, 1999, Defendant Charlie Bushyhead, the Assistant Principal for Union Intermediate High School, along with Defendant Sandy Franklin, a counselor at Union Public Schools, sent for Brandi and had her come into the office. When she arrived at the office, Defendant Bushyhead started being hostile towards her and accused her of being a witch. 14. Defendant, Sandy Franklin, was supposed to have been a counselor and had been helping the Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, but instead at this time joined in the interrogation. Defendant Bushyhead and Defendant Franklin repeatedly accused the Plaintiff of being a member of Wicca, practicing Wicca, and casting spells on other people. Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, repeatedly denied these accusations until such point as she was not emotionally strong enough to deny. She admitted that she had been reading books about Wicca and that she could be a member of a Wicca coven, although she had been heretofore been studying Wicca independently. Plaintiff Brandi Blackbear admitted this only because of the continued hostility and oppression by the Defendants. 15. The Plaintiff had a star drawn on her hand in ink, similar to the star that is printed on the flag of the United States of America, with a circle drawn around it. Defendant Bushyhead accused the Plaintiff of having a pentagram or a witches' symbol on her hand. 16. Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, was advised that she could not use any kind of emblems or any other paraphernalia that even remotely pertained to the Wicca religion, although numerous students openly displayed other religious symbols including the Christian cross and other items of religious paraphernalia inside the school. 17. The interview culminated with Defendant Bushyhead accusing Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, of casting spells causing Mr. Kemp to be sick and to be hospitalized. Based upon the unknown cause of Mr. Kemp's illness, Defendant Bushyhead advised Plaintiff that she was an immediate threat to the school and summarily suspended her for what he arbitrarily determined to be a disruption of the education process. Apparently, Bushyhead believed this alleged disruption was due to Mr. Kemp becoming sick because Plaintiff, Brandi Blackbear, had supposedly cast a spell upon this school teacher. 18. As a result of the action of the Defendants Charlie Bushyhead and Sandy Franklin, Plaintiff was suspended for a period of fifteen (15) days to begin on December 13, 1999, and was allowed to return to school on January 18, 2000. The suspension consisted of five (5) days at home and ten (10) days under a supervised suspension program. 19. The conduct and the conspiracy of the various teachers at Union Public School has caused and continues to cause the Plaintiff an extreme amount of emotional upset in that she has suffered continuous ridicule and humiliation from other students. Because of the conduct of the Principal and other school officials, she has become an outcast amongst her fellow students and does not feel comfortable at the school. These experiences caused by the school have caused her a great deal of pain, suffering, and anguish, and an inability to really obtain quality education. 20. The actions of the school have specifically violated Plaintiff's First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, due process, and the right to privacy. The school has destroyed her personal writings and has refused to return her private literary works that she had worked on over a considerable period of time. 21. The action of the school have been a deliberate attempt to suppress any religious inclination toward or expression of the religion of Wicca which Plaintiff may have or desire she may have, and have been an attempt to force certain religious concepts upon her and keep her from exercising her constitutional right to freedom of religion. 22. This has been an ongoing act in that the Plaintiff will continue to suffer and be persecuted unless an order is entered by the Court restraining the school district from interfering with her natural creative ability of writing and her desire to study and exercise any form of religion she desires without interference of the school, so long as it does not interfere with the school process or pose a threat to the safety or function of the school. 23. The acts of the Defendants have been a conspiracy to violate the Plaintiff's civil rights, and these acts are so outrageous that Plaintiff should be awarded both actual damages and punitive damages. Plaintiff has suffered past, present and will suffer future emotional and physical damages for which all of the Defendants should be assessed. In addition the individuals sued should be assessed punitive damages for their deliberate and indifferent acts in an attempt to violate this Plaintiff's constitutional rights and their wanton disregard of the Constitution of the United States. 24. The Defendants have put much inflammatory and prejudicial language in Plaintiff's personal school file which will continue to hurt and harm her throughout the remainder of her life. That material should be expunged and erased from Plaintiff's school records and the Court should enter an order directing the school officials to erase and correct these erroneous entries into her school record. WHEREFORE premises considers Plaintiff requests: 1. The Court should enter declaratory judgments that the Defendants' actions violate the United States Constitution, as set out in her petition. 2. Enter a preliminary injunction, later to be made permanent, enjoining Defendants, its employees and agents from prohibiting Plaintiff from wearing any religious item, including a pentagram in the form of a drawing or necklace if she so desires. 3. Award Plaintiff her costs, reasonable attorney fees and such other relief as the Court may deem just and equitable. Respectfully submitted, SIGNATURE OF COUNSEL John M. Butler , OBA #1377 Aundrea R. Smith , OBA #18470 6846 South Canton, Suite 150 Tulsa, Oklahoma 74136 (918) 494-9595 (918) 494-5046 Facsimile FOR THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF OKLAHOMA JURY TRIAL DEMANDED ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF BRANDI BLACKBEAR --- Msged/2 4.00 * Origin: Elfwhere - The POINTy eared POINT (3:640/531.2379) .