| Date | October 22, 2001 – July 12, 2002 |
|---|---|
| Location | Pocatalico, West Virginia |
| Participants | Katie Sierra,Amy Sierra,Forrest Mann,Kanawha County Board of Education |
| Outcome | Controversy becomes international cause célèbre, focused on student rights, anarchism, the post–September 11 anti-war movement, and the new sociopolitical landscape of post-9/11 American society. |
| Verdict | Judgment in favor of the plaintiff awards Katie Sierra with symbolic $1 in damages; state refuses further appeals.[1] |
In October 2001, Katie Sierra was suspended from Sissonville High School, near Charleston, West Virginia, for activism in opposition to the War in Afghanistan. Sierra, a 15-year-old anarchist pacifist, wore shirts bearing handwritten statements against the war and had unsuccessfully petitioned her principal to start an afterschool anarchist club that would promote peace and nonviolence. Following an incident with another student, Sierra was suspended for three days for disrupting the educational process.
Following a heated school board meeting that escalated the incident, the American Civil Liberties Union assisted Sierra in filing of a free speech lawsuit against the school district and her principal. Following verbal threats and physical assaults, Sierra's mother withdrew her from the school. While a circuit court initially upheld her suspension in November, a trial by jury in July 2002 concluded that Sierra had been justly suspended and forbidden to wear political shirts, but had been improperly denied the right to start a club. Sierra briefly returned to Sissonville High School in August 2002 before again withdrawing over peer harassment after less than a week.
The case garnered national and international media attention as a prominent freedom of speech case and symbol of post-September 11 American society.