## Facts

- The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), empowered by state law to set curriculum and adopt textbooks for public schools, solicited bids for high school environmental science textbooks.
- Daniel Chiras submitted an environmental science textbook that passed an expert review panel and was recommended for adoption by the state education commissioner.
- During SBOE public meetings, outside groups criticized the textbook as ideologically biased regarding environmental and economic issues.
- The SBOE voted not to adopt the textbook for the state-approved list and did not issue formal findings explaining the rejection.
- Chiras and a student plaintiff alleged the rejection was based on the textbook’s viewpoint and violated the First Amendment, including an asserted student right to receive information.
- Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; the district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6), reasoning textbook selection is government speech.
- Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether the SBOE’s adoption and rejection of textbooks for use in public-school classrooms constitutes government speech or a forum for private speech subject to viewpoint-neutrality requirements.
2. Whether plaintiffs stated a First Amendment claim based on alleged viewpoint discrimination in the SBOE’s textbook-adoption decision.
3. Whether students have a First Amendment right to receive specific curricular materials through the state’s textbook-adoption process.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal.
- The court held that selecting textbooks for public-school classroom instruction is government speech, not forum regulation of private speech.
- Because the state is speaking through its curriculum, the First Amendment does not require viewpoint neutrality in textbook selections.
- The court rejected the claim that students possess a constitutional right to have a particular textbook adopted for classroom use.

## Legal Principles

- When the government selects curricular materials for public-school instruction, it is engaging in government speech and may choose the content of that speech.
- Government speech is not subject to public-forum access rules or a general constitutional requirement of viewpoint neutrality.
- The First Amendment does not confer a right on authors or students to compel inclusion of a specific privately authored textbook in the official curriculum.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that Texas’s textbook-adoption decisions are government speech, so alleged viewpoint-based rejection of a proposed textbook did not state a First Amendment claim, and students had no enforceable right to obtain a particular textbook through the state curriculum.


Chiras v. Miller, 432 F.3d 606 (5th Cir. 2005)