A high school senior’s challenge to the marketing of cow’s milk in school lunches has been dismissed by a federal judge in Los Angeles. Marielle Williamson, who is vegan, claimed that her First Amendment rights were violated because she could not freely criticize the consumption of cow’s milk at her school, Eagle Rock High School. The case originated when school administrators told Williamson, then 17, that she could not hand out literature criticizing dairy milk and the dairy industry, unless she also distributed materials about the virtues of dairy milk.
Williamson and the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Los Angeles Unified School District in May 2023. While the district settled in November 2023, acknowledging students’ right to criticize dairy and agreeing to support offering free soy milk to students, Williamson asserted that a USDA prohibition against restricting the sale or marketing of dairy milk by schools was unconstitutional. However, U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin ruled that Williamson lacked standing to sue the USDA over alleged censorship at her high school, and that her claims were moot because she had graduated.
Judge dismisses First Amendment lawsuit
The judge found no allegations that the USDA itself threatened to silence Williamson, or that the law authorizing the National School Lunch Program created a mechanism to punish students. “Mere allegations of a subjective chill are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm,” the judge wrote.
Williamson, now a Duke University sophomore studying in China, and the Physicians Committee are assessing how to pursue further lawsuits in light of the decision. Deborah Press, associate general counsel at the Physicians Committee, said, “The problem remains that there are thousands of students who rely on school meals and need an alternative to cow’s milk. Marielle’s lawsuit raised the conversation to the national level.”
The case has been part of a broader conversation about dietary choices in school cafeterias and students’ rights to express their views.
The USDA’s motion to dismiss was granted, and the court denied leave to amend the complaint.
