Case: 12-60264
Document: 00513162565
Page: 11
Date Filed: 08/20/2015
No. 12-60264
as a result of the rap recording; and, a written version of Bell’s rap recording
was presented to the school board, before it adopted the disciplinarycommittee’s recommendation for suspension and temporary placement in the
alternative school.
Both coaches identified in the rap recording testified that it adversely
affected their work at the school.
Coach R. testified:
subsequent to the
publication of the recording, students began spending more time in the gym,
despite teachers’ telling them to remain in classrooms; and the recording
affected him in the way he conducted himself around students, noting he would
no longer work with female members of the track team, instead instructing
males on the team on how to coach the females and then having the males do
so. Coach W. testified he: interpreted the statements in the rap recording
literally, after hearing it on a student’s smartphone at school; was “scared”,
because “you never know in today’s society . . . what somebody means, [or] how
they mean it”; and would not allow the members of the school basketball team
he coached to leave after games until he was in his vehicle.
After finding Bell’s last day attending the alternative school would be
the next day, 11 March, the district court ruled whether to grant injunctive
relief was moot. Accordingly, the requested injunction was denied.
It does not appear that any discovery took place after the preliminaryinjunction hearing. On 9 May, following a case-management conference, the
magistrate judge entered an order stating: “it appears that there are no factual
issues and that this case should be resolved by motions for summary
judgment”; and the parties had 90 days to file those motions.
Therefore, approximately three months later, the school board filed its
summary-judgment motion on 1 August; Bell and his mother, on 5 August. On
15 March 2012, the district court denied the Bells’ motion and granted the
11
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