School Employee’s First Amendment Claim to Proceed to Trial
In April 2025, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (District Court) issued an opinion allowing a school employee’s First Amendment retaliation claim to proceed to trial. In the case, the Executive Director of Student Services (Director) of a school district (School District) was employed by the School District under a one-year contract for the 2021-2022 school year. During the spring of 2022, the Director began a campaign for County Regional Superintendent of Schools, which is a political position unrelated to her employment with the School District. The Director held a gun raffle to raise campaign contributions in May 2022 shortly after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting. She advertised the gun raffle on her personal Facebook page. Within weeks of posting the advertisement, the Director was placed on paid administrative leave by the School District for the remaining term of her employment contract.
The Director filed a lawsuit against the School District, claiming she was terminated and her contract was not renewed in retaliation for her post about the gun raffle. The Director argued that the School District’s actions constituted a breach of her employment contract and that they violated her First Amendment right to free speech. The School District defended its decision because of her poor performance, which was contested.
The Court went through a balancing test to evaluate the First Amendment violation claim specifically whether the Director’s interest in speaking as a private citizen outweighed the School District’s interest in maintaining orderly operations. First, the Court found that the raffle advertisement was posted in the Director’s personal capacity, since it related to her campaign for public office that was separate from her employment. Second, in evaluating whether the Director’s post interfered with the School District’s operations, the District Court considered the actual impact of her post on the school community based on several factors, including whether the post disrupted harmony among co-workers, whether the post interfered with the Director’s job duties, and the context of the post.
The School District argued that the advertisement was very disruptive, since it was posted around the same time of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and staff had raised concerns about the Director’s judgment in advertising a gun raffle at that time. The Director argued that the School District had misconstrued the post because the post was made to her personal Facebook page, and she had not discussed the raffle while at work. Further, she argued her campaign did not impact her ability to do her job as Director.
Taking all the factors into consideration, the District Court found that the School District failed to show that the post unduly interfered with its operations or the Director’s performance of her duties. Because the School District had not shown that its interests outweighed those of the Director in speaking freely, it did not meet its burden for summary judgment. The District Court ruled in favor of the School District on the breach of contract claims. The District Court denied the School District's motion for summary judgment on the Director’s First Amendment retaliation claim and determined that the claim could move forward to trial.
This is a copy of the decision.