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 constitutional controversy, and reflect on the real-world implications of zero-tolerance school discipline policies.

Also in this episode:

Christine's firsthand account of teaching at a Louisville public school — the school-to-prison pipeline, segregated cafeteria tables, books that can't leave the classroom, and a student who photographed every page just to study at home

The parallels between public school bureaucracy and family court dysfunction — conflict is incentivized, pragmatism is rare

A broader conversation about Tinker v. Des Moines, political polarization, cancel culture, and whether reasonable minds can still prevail

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