If a law is passed limiting free speech of high school students could a group of teachers challenge the law in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates the students' Constitutional rights?

Answer 1

They can't. Assuming the law is genuinely unreasonable and a violation of First Amendment protection, the case would have to be initiated in US District Court, which is the court of original jurisdiction for this kind of complaint. Unfortunately, the teachers wouldn't have standing to bring a case to court on behalf of the students. The students (and/or) their parents would have to find legal representation to fight the law themselves. Only those "damaged" by a law have the right to legal redress in the courts.

When the NAACP challenged segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) they filed a class action suit representing the interests of a number of children affected by segregation. The group of students and their parents became plaintiffs in a single suit against the Topeka Board of Education, while the NAACP provided legal counsel (they were not party to the suit themselves). The NAACP Legal Defense fund initiated similar cases in various parts of the country to demonstrate how pervasive the problems of segregation were, and to strengthen their chance of eventually obtaining a hearing before the Supreme Court. As expected, they lost all of their cases at the District Court level.

They next had to file appeals in the US Court of Appeals Circuit Courts with jurisdiction over the the lower courts where the various cases were originally tried.

When they lost at the intermediate appellate level, they were then able to file a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court. This petition is a formal request for the Court to review their case(s) under its appellate jurisdiction.

Back in 1954, the Supreme Court only received a few thousand petitions per year, but that was still more work than nine justices could handle, so they had to be careful to choose only the cases with the greatest national and constitutional significance. Today, the Court receives in excess of 10,000 petitions per year, and can only grant certiorari (agree to review) 1% or less of the cases presented.

In order to increase the likelihood of being heard, the NAACP consolidated five separate class action suits from around the country, and packaged them as a single case. This is the strategy that would likely be most successful if a group of students felt their First Amendment rights were violated. The more people negatively affected by a law, the more likely a case is to receive attention.

The Supreme Court Rules, Rule 10, explains how the Court determines which cases are worthy of its limited time, and which are not:

Rule 10. Considerations Governing Review on Writ of Certiorari

Review on a writ of certiorari is not a matter of right, but of judicial discretion. A petition for a writ of certiorari will be granted only for compelling reasons. The following, although neither controlling nor fully measuring the Court's discretion, indicate the character of the reasons the Court considers:

• (a) a United States court of appeals has entered a decision in conflict with the decision of another United States court of appeals on the same important matter; has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with a decision by a state court of last resort; or has so far departed from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings, or sanctioned such a departure by a lower court, as to call for an exercise of this Court's supervisory power;
• (b) a state court of last resort has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with the decision of another state court of last resort or of a United States court of appeals;
• (c) a state court or a United States court of appeals has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this Court, or has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this Court.

A petition for a writ of certiorari is rarely granted when the asserted error consists of erroneous factual findings or the misapplication of a properly stated rule of law.

To view the Supreme Court Rules in their entirety, see Related Links, below.