EP 97 The High Life
From The JudgeMental Podcast by Christine Miller, Hugh Barrow
May 6, 2026 · 27 min · Season 1 · Episode 97
About this episode
Christine and Trey discuss a federal court case involving a first-grade student's drawing and its implications for First Amendment rights in schools.
JudgeMental Podcast – Episode 98 The High Life In this episode, Christine and Trey kick off with a classic Friday vibe — Miller High Life may or may not have been involved — before diving into a case that will leave you asking: how did this end up in federal court? Case: B.B. v. Castano Unified School District (9th Circuit) A 7-year-old first-grade student drew a picture of her friends holding hands after a class lesson on Martin Luther King Jr. She included the words "Black Lives Matter" (misspelled) and gave it to her African American classmate as a gesture of kindness and solidarity. The school punished her — and a federal civil rights lawsuit followed. The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment, holding that even elementary school students have First Amendment speech protections under Tinker v. Des Moines, and that a student's young age is a relevant but non-dispositive factor. The panel made clear that this sweet, well-intentioned drawing was nowhere near the kind of disruptive speech schools are permitted to regulate. Christine and Trey break down the opinion, discuss how the political climate turned an act of childhood kindness into a…
People in this episode
Hosts: Christine Miller, Hugh Barrow
Guest: Trey
Topics covered
- First Amendment
- school discipline
- civil rights
- political climate
- childhood kindness
Keywords
- First Amendment
- school discipline
- civil rights lawsuit
- B.B. v. Castano
- political climate
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Castano Unified School District, Martin Luther King Jr., Ninth Circuit
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