Senior's Gun-Toting Pic Barred from Yearbook; Lawsuit on Horizon
by Jim Brown
October 20, 2004
(AgapePress) - A twelfth-grader is set to sue his New Hampshire high school over its decision to reject his senior yearbook photo featuring a broke-open shotgun slung over his shoulder.| | 
Blake Douglass(Courtesy Photo) |
At question is a photo of 17-year-old Blake Douglass in traditional sportsman's pose, wearing a white oxford shirt, a navy skeet-shooting vest, and khaki pants. School board officials at Londonderry Senior High School voted unanimously to bar the photo from the senior section of the yearbook, saying the image violated its zero-tolerance policy against guns. But the student's attorney, Penny Dean, says the school simply hates guns."The only word we hear ... from them is 'inappropriate.' We repeatedly hear them say, 'This is inappropriate.' I look at that as a conclusory statement [an assertion offering no supporting evidence]," Dean says. The attorney explains that when she asks the school to explain why the image is inappropriate, she receives no answer.
"The closest thing [to an explanation] is that the principal said 'people will think we allow people to bring guns to school'" -- to which Dean responds: "What about all the senior pictures with the dogs? Does anyone seriously think these kids are allowed to bring their dogs to school everyday?"
Dean says she intends to file the federal lawsuit late next week or early the following week. The National Rifle Association has offered to help fund the Douglass case.
"We're going to argue First Amendment due process," the lawyer explains, "and obviously there's a component of the Second Amendment in here. What I'm finding that people more and more are trying to do [is] use the First Amendment to quash the Second Amendment -- and this is still just a First Amendment case where they don't like his speech and they're trying to stifle it."
Blake is an avid sports shooter, reports The Union Leader newspaper, and had argued his photo be allowed in the yearbook because other student had been permitted to represent their hobbies in their photos. His attorney describes him as a "clean-cut, all-American boy from next door."
