Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corporation, No. 04-1695 (S.D. Ind. March 10, 2006)
An Indiana U.S. district court has ruled that a teacher's free speech rights were not violated when she was prohibited from expressing her opinion of the war in Iraq during instructional time. The court also dismissed her claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985 that school district officials conspired to retaliate against her and chill the exercise of her free speech rights. Deborah Mayer was employed as a probationary teacher at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana under a one-year contract with Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC). During a class discussion of an article about peace marches in protest of U.S. military involvement in Iraq, she voiced the opinion that peace was preferable to war and said she personally supported the peace marchers. When the parents of a student complained, principal Victoria Rogers held a meeting with the parents and Ms. Mayer and allegedly prohibited Ms. Mayer from discussing peace in her classroom. Ms. Rogers later issued a memo in which she specifically instructed teachers not to promote a particular view on foreign policy in regard to the war in Iraq. Several parents also complained about Ms. Mayer's teaching techniques and poor communication skills with students and parents. As a result of parent complaints and classroom observations, Ms. Rogers recommended that Ms. Mayer's contract not be renewed. When the school board followed this recommendation, Ms. Mayer sued, alleging that: (1) school officials retaliated against her by harassing and firing her for discussing her opposition to the war in Iraq, violating and chilling her First Amendment right to free speech; (2) school officials conspired to deny or chill her free speech rights, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985; (3) the nonrenewal constituted a breach of contract; and (4) the action violated the requirements of the state's teacher tenure act.
For such a free speech claim to succeed, the district court noted, a public employee must establish: (1) under
Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), that she was speaking "as a citizen upon a matter of public concern"; and (2) under
Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), that her interest as a citizen in commenting on a matter of public concern outweighed the school district's interest as a public employer "in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees." Acknowledging that the war in Iraq is a matter of public concern, the court found that Ms. Mayer was acting as an employee rather than a citizen when she spoke, because her speech took place during instructional time in the classroom and was directed at her students. Therefore, her speech was not protected by the First Amendment, and it was unnecessary to proceed to the
Pickering prong of the test. The court ruled that the § 1985 claim also failed because under the "intra-corporate conspiracy" doctrine, discussions among the defendants, all of whom were employees of the school district, did not constitute a "conspiracy" for purposes of § 1985. The court also dismissed the two law state claims.
Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corporation, No. 04-1695 (S.D. Ind. March 10, 2006)
[Link to full opinion][
Editor's Note: This week the U.S. Supreme Court reheard oral arguments in a case involving this question of when a public employee's workplace speech can give rise to constitutional claims. For background on the case and information on the reargument, see below.]
[NSBA School Law pages on Garcetti v. Ceballos][BoardBuzz on reargument of Garcetti v. Ceballos]