Recently, the Federal District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois (District Court) issued an opinion
allowing a public employee’s First Amendment retaliation claim to proceed to
trial. Caparelli-Ruff
v. Bd. of Educ. of East Aurora Sch. Dist. 131.
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. In the spring
of 2022, the Director began her campaign for County Regional Superintendent of
Schools—a position unrelated to her employment with the School District.
To raise campaign contributions,
the Director held a gun raffle, which she advertised on her personal Facebook
page. Within weeks of posting the advertisement, the Director was placed on
paid administrative leave for the remaining term of her employment contract
with the School District. 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 violated her First Amendment right to free speech and constituted
a breach of her employment contract. The School
District defended its decision to place the Director on
leave and not rehire her for the following school year because of her poor performance
(and not her speech activity).
The District Court ruled in favor of the
School District on the breach of contract claims, finding that the Director’s
contract did not entitle her to automatic renewal of her employment for the
following school year. Because the Director could not establish that her
employment contract was breached, or that the School District had agreed to
retain her for the following school year, her contract claims were dismissed.
On the Director’s First Amendment
retaliation claim, however, the District Court denied the School District's motion for summary judgment and allowed that claim to move forward to trial. The Court
undertook a balancing test to evaluate 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 clearly 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 (1) whether the post disrupted harmony among
co-workers, (2) whether the post interfered with the Director’s job duties, and
(3) the context of the post, among others.
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, in May 2022 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 taken the post out of
context: the post was made to her personal Facebook page, and she had not
discussed the raffle while at work. Furthermore, her campaign did not impact
her ability to do her job as Director. Taking all of these factors into
consideration, the District Court found that the School District was unable to
demonstrate 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.
For these reasons, the District
Court determined that the Director’s First Amendment retaliation claim could
move forward to trial.
Post Authored by Erin Monforti & Julie Tappendorf, Ancel
Glink
