Blake Douglass and his Yearbook Photo

Back in October I wrote about a high school senior who decided to sue the school because his proposed senior photo was rejected from the yearbook. Since that time, the case was heard by the District Court. Here is a copy of a paper that I wrote for Political Science regarding the case:

On October 13, 2004, a story broke the headlines about a young man’s senior photo that was rejected from the high school’s yearbook because he was posing with a shotgun. The young man, Blake Douglass, decided to take the issue, which he believed violated his 1^st Amendment right of freedom of speech, to court after the yearbook committee, advisor, principal and superintendent rejected the photo because it contained a firearm, according to original reports. The Douglass family claims the photo was rejected by school faculty members, not the yearbook committee.

The case, Douglass v Londonderry School (2005), was brought before the District Court in New Hampshire where it was presided over by Judge Steven McAuliffe. Judge McAuliffe did not rule in favor of young Mr. Douglass. As I mentioned earlier, the family claimed the photo was rejected by faculty members and not the yearbook committee, which is student-run. Had they been able to establish this fact in court, Judge McAuliffe says he would have ruled in favor of publishing the photo. There are very few high school students that I know of who would reject a photo, no questions asked, without the input from a higher authority.

In years past, Douglass had seen other seniors pose with items pertaining to their hobbies, such as musical instruments. Since he is an avid skeet and trap shooter, he decided he wanted to be remembered by having his senior photo pertain to skeet and trap. After the photo had been rejected and once Douglass decided to sue, the school adopted a policy which banned the use of props in senior photos. Douglass also claimed this was a specific action which targeted him. Since the new policy was adopted after he sued, his lawyer argued, it shouldn’t apply to him. When the ruling was made on the 17^th of March, however, the judge failed to see how "the new policy is a ruse or facade, actually designed to suppress his particular message."

The photo that young Mr. Blake Douglas presented to the Yearbook committee is one of the most professional-looking photos I've ever seen for a high school yearbook. There is no way that a case can be made that this photo is "inappropriate". The photos that a senior has in his or her section of a yearbook should be decided by that person. I do agree that there should be some regulation, but that regulation should not ban fully clothed people in completely normal, law-biding situations from being shown in the yearbook. One could make the argument that since the shotgun photo is "inappropriate" for a yearbook, my fencing pictures are also inappropriate for a yearbook since I am holding a "sword" (as the uneducated should say), which is a weapon, in my hand.

No, you can't have your shotgun pose picture in the yearbook, but some 16 year old girl can have more ink in her body that you can find in the pens of a college student's dorm room and more piercings on her face than you can put make up on while most of her body is exposed through her dress (or lack thereof). Does anyone else see a contradiction here? If she has the “right” to express her self through her inappropriate style of dress then he surely should have the right to express his professional sportsmanship through a simple photo in the yearbook. I have included his proposed photo at the end of my paper, also. I think the question that should be asked here is, “How much will a yearbook picture affect us in 5 years?” The answer is that it won't matter. On the other hand, how much will the current direction of our nose-diving circa-high school student/graduate culture affect us in 5 years? The answer? TONS. Those juvenile delinquents that you and I see running around everyday are the future of this country. I really think there comes a time when we need to step back and re-evaluate what we are doing.

Blake Douglass’ goal was to simply have his senior photo, pictured below, in the yearbook. The photo was rejected by either faculty or the yearbook staff, or both. One part that I do not understand is that the judge said the rejection of the photo was valid, if it had been done by the yearbook committee. However, the school made a policy regarding what would be considered acceptable material for potential pictures. So, in a sense, they, the school & not the yearbook committee, rejected other photos simply by adopting that policy. That seems to be a contradiction to me.

There was a little bit more to the paper, but I decided to cut the online posting of it here. If you would like to read more about the case, go here & here.

Crispy