Chiras v. Miller

The Texas State Board of Education (state board) (defendant) had statutory authority to adopt and purchase or license textbooks for use in public education. The state board requested bids from publishers for environmental-science textbooks to be used in public high schools. An environmental-science textbook written by Michael Chiras (plaintiff) was submitted to a review panel of state college professors who reported to the state board commissioner that no additional corrections were necessary. After public comment, the commissioner placed the textbook on the proposed list of textbooks and recommended that the state board adopt the textbook. The state board allowed additional public comment on the textbook at a public hearing. Two conservative organizations spoke in opposition to the textbook and the state board voted not to adopt the textbook without offering formal findings or reasons for its rejection. Chiras and a high-school student (plaintiff) filed an action against the state board in the district court and claimed that rejection of the textbook constituted impermissible viewpoint discrimination in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The state board filed a motion to dismiss. The district court ruled that the state board could permissibly discriminate on the basis of viewpoint when selecting public-school-curriculum textbooks. The district court granted the state board’s motion to dismiss the claim. Chiras and the student appealed.