AutoCo is a privately owned corporation that manufactures automobiles.

AutoCo is a privately owned corporation that manufactures automobiles. Ten years ago, AutoCo purchased a five-square-mile parcel of unincorporated land in a remote region of the state and built a large automobile assembly plant on the land. To attract workers to the remote location of the plant, AutoCo built apartment buildings and houses on the land and leased them to its employees. AutoCo owns and operates a commercial district with shops and streets open to the general public. AutoCo named the area Oakwood and provides security, fire protection, and sanitation services for Oakwood’s residents. AutoCo also built, operates, and fully funds the only school in the region, which it makes available free of charge to the children of its employees.

A family recently moved to Oakwood. The father and mother work in AutoCo’s plant, rent an apartment from AutoCo, and have enrolled their 10-year-old son in Oakwood’s school. Every morning, the students are required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while standing and saluting an American flag. With the approval of his parents, the son has politely but insistently refused to recite the Pledge and salute the flag at the school on the grounds that doing so violates his own political beliefs and the political beliefs of his family. As a result of his refusal to say the Pledge, the son has been expelled from the school.

To protest the school’s actions, the father walked into the commercial district of Oakwood. While standing on a street corner, he handed out leaflets that contained a short essay critical of the school’s Pledge of Allegiance policy. Some of the passersby who took the leaflets dropped them to the ground. An AutoCo security guard saw the litter, told the father that Oakwood’s anti-litter rule prohibits leaflet distribution that results in littering, and directed him to cease distribution of the leaflets and leave the commercial district. When the father did not leave and continued to distribute the leaflets, the security guard called the state police, which sent officers who arrested the father for trespass.

1. Did the son’s expulsion from the school violate the First Amendment as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment? Explain.

2. Did the father’s arrest violate the First Amendment as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment? Explain.