Can a public school district make a declaration condemning a foreign state?

Question

A local board of education is considering making a declaration condemning Israel for the war between Israel and Hamas, similar to the one that certain Harvard student groups made in October 2023. Apparently, the board has been lobbied to do that by a number of parents who are Palestinian. Thus the question: can a public school board, an elected body in a public education system, make such declarations?

Answer 1

Yes, specifically because anyone at any level of the US government, be it the local, state, or federal level, not to mention people outside of the government, can make almost any statement, subject to a few narrow limitations, and statements criticizing foreign governments fall into that much broader category. This freedom is guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, with few specific exceptions for government employees. The most famous of these is the Hatch Act, but that only applies to federal employees and would not cover the statements in question.

Note that conceptually, this statement is not so different from many other, less contentious ones that schools often make: for instance, in support of action against climate change or gun violence. The same latitude that allows schools to make these sorts of statements also allows them to opine on foreign politics, or for that matter to weigh in on domestic politics.

While the previous paragraphs should make it clear that no school board member is "disallowed" from making statements in the sense of facing criminal liability, it is worth mentioning that the school itself could be investigated by the Office of Civil Rights if the statement was suspected to represent discrimination against students. However, not only is this unlikely to lead anywhere, since the statement explicitly took a stand against discrimination, including anti-Semitism, but such investigations are limited in what they can do. Pulling federal funding is the most extreme remedy, but is very rarely employed, for the simple reason that it primarily punishes students, including those whose alleged experiences with discrimination are the targets of such investigations. When such investigations do bear fruit—again, not particularly likely here—the typical result is a strong and legally irrelevant suggestion for the school to change its practices.

Since the school board members are elected officials, they can, of course, also be voted out in the next election if voters disagree with their positions. This is the same accountability any elected official faces. Depending on the district, they might also be subject to a recall election—again, as many public officials at the local level may be—or even impeached.

Answer 2

Can they? Yes, they clearly can and have already done so (this is just one such declaration):

The school board in this city endorsed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war early Thursday morning, more than five hours after convening for a meeting was expected to be contentious.

The vote made Ann Arbor Public Schools one of the only school districts in the United States to adopt such a stance, three months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel ignited a war in Gaza and fierce debates in public bodies across the United States.

Will there be any consequences to their actions? Currently unclear, would depend on the outcome of an investigation by Federal authorities into the matter, due to potential discrimination against Jewish students at pro-Palestine schools:

Complaints about anti-Israel protests at Temple University and Brown University filed by a Jewish right-wing activist who attends neither university are among the latest round of antisemitism investigations opened by the US Department of Education.

The department’s civil rights office is also looking into a series of University of Minnesota faculty statements condemning Israel, following a complaint by a prominent Republican on the law school faculty.

In addition, as of this week, the civil rights office has opened investigations at the two largest Bay Area public school districts, where some families have cited antisemitism concerns in applying to transfer out. And it is scrutinizing a private college where a Jewish anti-Zionist professor has publicly supported Hamas.

I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to answer the question of whether this investigation will result in any fines to the school district.

Answer 3

Question:

Can a public school district make a declaration condemning a foreign state?

It's a rather bold move. The school board that would make this declaration would have nothing to gain. It stands for re-election regularly, so if the declaration was not supported by the community they could and would lose their positions pretty quickly. I thus don't think they will do it.

Otherwise freedom of speech while not an absolute right in the United States, this would fall under the right. The ultimate accountability for the action is with the voters they represent.