Seattle Schools Settles on First Amendment Accusation By Garfield High Student
Editor's update - I had a few details wrong so I have corrected them.
I plan on writing a longer piece on this incident that came right before then-Principal Ted Howard left Garfield High School in July 2020.
The basics are that in 2019 2017 there was a hazing incident by the Garfield High boys swim team by senior team members against freshman members. It involved a nudity ploy that's pretty disgusting. The student at the focus of this case (who is on the autism spectrum ) saw this incident but it did not happen to him. However, he did worry that someday it might and left the team. He came back in 2019 and had a different bad experience which he told the coach about which did not involve the team captains on the current team. That experience was not investigated.
In 2020, the school newspaper, the Garfield Messenger, decided to investigate the topic of hazing in sports. A student journalist did multiple interviews with various students including the student in question.
One day the student in this lawsuit had gone to the school to meet with the student journalist when he was intercepted by then Vice Principal Gregory Barnes as well as then-SRO officer (and SPD officer) Rosell Ellis. They asked to speak with him and he said okay. In an office, he was told he should not do the interview because it "wouldn't be in his best interest."
The student's parents were called to come in and the student's father did come. Before the father got there, the student was told that he would have to be interviewed by police and, because there was an ongoing investigation, he couldn't talk to the press.
The student became increasingly nervous and upset and his father could see it when he arrived. Barnes and Ellis said they were trying to protect the student against backlash from other students. They also wanted the father to sign a document saying the student would follow "all staff orders" or there could be "an Emergency Expulsion."
The father declined the police interview.
The student never did talk to the student journalist nor was a story written for the student newspaper. (The student was repeatedly told it wouldn't be good for Garfield if the story got out to the media.) To this day, it does not appear there ever was an investigation about this hazing incident.
After Assistant Principal Barnes’ encounter with A.T. (the student) on January 17, 2020, Garfield’s principal at the time, Theodore Howard II, interrupted a meeting between the student journalist and the journalism faculty advisor, requesting to discuss the article. Principal Howard made several comments, including indicating that he had received complaints from the parents of the alleged aggressors, who were threatening legal action if the story was published. Mr. Howard indicated that the entire editorial board of The Messenger, including the student journalist herself, could be held personally financially responsible for the accuracy of the statements contained in the article.
At Summary Judgment, the Honorable Ricardo S. Martinez, Chief Judge of the Western District
of Washington, declined to grant the District’s motion with respect to A.T.’s First Amendment
claim, writing that he the Court was not convinced by the District’s attempt to paint A.T.
dishonestly. The case was set to proceed to a jury trial in June, but was settled through a mediation
between the parties on May 6, 2024, with Seattle Public Schools agreeing to pay A.T. $125,000 in
exchange for a dismissal of his claim.
One irony is that since the Board voted to raise the spending limit by staff that needs to be reported to them - from $250,000 to $1M - it's possible they won't ever know about this incident.
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