Wednesday, February 22, 2017

First Amendment

A teacher in Collier county is reassigned pending investigation into comments that she made about her support for Trump deporting illegals and her opposition to the "day without immigrants" protest. There is a petition to get her fired.

That isn't going to happen, and I think that the teacher has a pretty good shot at a lawsuit for violation of her First Amendment rights. A similar thing happened a couple of years ago when a Lake County teacher spoke out on Facebook about his opposition to gay marriage. The teacher hired an attorney, and they settled the matter. The teacher is still at the school, still working, and the school is terrified of him. It made him a bit of a hero to the kids of the school, and he gave last year's commencement address at the request of the senior class. He had to point out at the beginning of the address that his speech had been preapproved by his and the school's attorneys.

Comments made while you are off work and expressing your own opinion are exactly what the First Amendment is designed to protect. Her employer is a government agency, and therefore cannot violate her right to speak. If she gets an attorney, she will win.

No comments: