Speaker policy change attacked

After a long, hot summer in which the Clark County School Board often faced harsh criticism and charges of racism, the board is considering a change in its policy on public speakers to prohibit language that is "slanderous, offensive, inflammatory (or) irrational."

Instead of silencing "personal attacks," the proposal has exposed the School Board to a new round of criticism from an eclectic mix of organizations that include the American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute and a West Las Vegas community activist group called WAAK-UP.

These groups have all criticized the School Board for trying to stifle free speech.

Maggie McLetchie, staff attorney for the ACLU of Nevada, said the organization is preparing a letter to send to the School Board.

Noting that words like "slanderous" and "offensive" are "subjective terms," McLetchie said it is not up to the School Board to determine the content of a public speaker's remarks.

School Board President Terri Janison acknowledged the criticism.

"We realize the wording was too broad," Janison said. "We're going to bring it back to make sure it's in line with the First Amendment."

The School Board had originally considered adopting the following language: "Public comment, the content of which is irrelevant, beyond the authority of the Board, willfully disruptive of the meeting, repetitious, slanderous, offensive, inflammatory, irrational, amounts to personal attacks or interferes with the rights of other speakers, is prohibited."

The language was taken from a state attorney general's office opinion from Feb. 25, 2002, involving the city of North Las Vegas.

But Mary-Anne Miller, counsel to the School Board, acknowledged at the Sept. 24 board meeting that this opinion was "a little broad in view of more recent cases. It's very difficult to enforce."

Miller told the School Board that any actions to limit a speaker cannot be "based on the content of a person's speech."

"If people get off-track or become too disruptive, you can ask them to move on or temporarily suspend the meeting until order is restored," Miller said.

School Board members can also sue someone if they think they have been slandered, she added.

School Board meetings have been contentious this year as the board has grappled with controversial issues such as socially isolated schools in the inner city and perceived inequalities in school funding.

Members of WAAK-UP have demanded that portable classrooms at the West Prep Academy be replaced with permanent facilities. The school, which is near the intersection of Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards, serves mostly minority children in West Las Vegas, the area generally bordered by Carey Avenue on the north, Bonanza Road on the south, Interstate 15 on the east and Rancho Drive on the west.

At one meeting, School Board member Deanna Wright was so flustered that people were speaking over each other that she told audience member Marzette Lewis to "Shut up!"

School Board member Linda Young followed one public speaker, Anyika Kamal, out to the parking lot after he criticized her effectiveness as a School Board member.

Lewis of WAAK-UP said her group is justifiably angry.

"We have a right to be mad. We have a right to be outraged at what's being done to these poor children," she said.

Lewis said the School Board was "absolutely insane. There's no way you can limit freedom of speech."

The Nevada Policy Research Institute acknowledged that board meetings indeed bring out passion and that participants can feel personally attacked.

But, it said, "prohibiting speech that trustees unilaterally find irrelevant, inflammatory, irrational or offensive will only paint the board further into a corner -- characterizing it as one that routinely fails to respond to community needs and instead merely seeks to suppress the public."

McLetchie, the ACLU attorney, said the School Board members, as public officials, will always be subjected to some public ridicule.

"That goes with the territory," she said.

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.