Second Circuit rules school officials entitled to qualified immunity from suit alleging First Amendment violations as a result of long-term suspension

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (NY, VT, CT) has ruled in a per curiam (no judge identified as the author) decision that school officials are entitled to qualified immunity from suit brought by a student who was given a long term suspension for making an anti-Hispanic remark and, thus, denied the opportunity to return to school to offer an explanation to his classmates for the remark, alleging violations of his First Amendment free speech and association rights and his Fourteenth Amendment procedural and substantive due process and equal protection rights. The panel concluded that, assuming arguendo that the student had a ” clearly established” constitutional right to return to school to offer an explanation regarding his remark, school officials had an “objectively reasonable” belief they were acting within constitutional and statutory parameters when they barred the student from returning to school based on repeated and serious threats to his physical safety.