## Facts

- Janice Davis Dike, a public-school kindergarten teacher, returned to work after childbirth and sought to breastfeed her infant once during the school day.
- She arranged for her husband or babysitter to bring the infant to campus during her duty-free lunch period.
- She breastfed in privacy in a locked room where others could not see and alleged the arrangement would not interfere with her duties or disrupt the school.
- After about three months, the principal told Dike to stop because a school rule prohibited teachers from bringing their own children to work, citing disruption and potential liability.
- Dike stopped breastfeeding at school and used pumped milk and bottle-feeding; she alleged the child reacted adversely to alternatives and that cessation caused emotional and psychological effects on the child and herself.
- Dike asked to (1) resume breastfeeding on campus during lunch under the prior private arrangement or (2) breastfeed off campus (e.g., in the parking lot) during lunch.
- The school board denied the requests, relying on the child-on-campus prohibition and a policy barring teachers from leaving campus during the day.
- Dike took unpaid leave and sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging unconstitutional interference with her right to nurture her child by breastfeeding.

## Issues

1. Whether a mother’s interest in nurturing her child through breastfeeding is a constitutionally protected liberty interest within familial privacy and parental autonomy under substantive due process.
2. Whether the complaint stated a claim such that dismissal as frivolous was improper.
3. Whether defendants could recover attorneys’ fees on the theory that the action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation.

## Decision

- The court reversed the dismissal, holding that the interest of a mother in nurturing her child, including breastfeeding, is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Constitution.
- The court held the complaint was not frivolous and sufficiently alleged substantial interference with that protected interest.
- The court reversed the attorneys’ fee award to defendants because the suit was not frivolous.
- The court remanded for further proceedings, declining to decide on the pleadings whether the school board’s policies, as applied, were justified and constitutional.

## Legal Principles

- Parental decisions concerning the nurturing and rearing of children fall within constitutionally protected family privacy and substantive due process liberty interests.
- Breastfeeding is within the protected sphere of parental care; governmental action that substantially interferes with breastfeeding implicates a fundamental liberty interest.
- When a fundamental liberty interest is substantially burdened, the government must show sufficiently important interests and that the restriction is closely (narrowly) tailored to those interests.
- A prevailing civil-rights defendant may recover attorneys’ fees only if the plaintiff’s claim is frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation; the presence of a serious constitutional claim precludes such a finding at the pleading stage.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that breastfeeding is a constitutionally protected aspect of parental nurturing, reversed dismissal and a defense fee award, and required factual development to determine whether the school board’s anti-disruption, liability, and on-campus policies were adequately justified and narrowly tailored as applied to the teacher’s proposed arrangements.


Dike v. Sch. Bd. of Orange Cnty., 650 F.2d 783 (5th Cir. 1981)