(The Oregonian)—A federal judge Friday did not appear ready to order the Lake Oswego School District to put ex-track coach John Parks back to work.
But U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon did say in court that he believed a letter Parks wrote protesting a transgender girl’s participation in a state track competition was protected speech.
Parks, now 62, sued the school district and school board in July, arguing they violated his First Amendment right to free speech by initiating a retaliatory investigation and terminated his coaching contract after he spoke out.
“I do think, frankly, that the May 15 email does fall within protected speech made by a private citizen,” Simon said.
But the matter before the court Friday was Parks’ request for the judge to order the district to return him to his jobs as Lake Oswego High School’s head track coach and as a special education teaching assistant while his legal case proceeds.
“We established a violation of his free speech,” said Buck Dougherty, Parks’ lawyer from the Texas-based Liberty Justice Center, a conservative litigation group. “He should be restored to his job.”
O’Kasey also disputed that Parks sent his letter to the OSAA as a public citizen, noting the first line identifies Parks as Lake Oswego’s head track and field coach.
“I am writing first as the Lake Oswego HS head track coach but secondarily as coach in the sport at Olympic, NCAA and professional ranks for decades prior to my current position,” the letter started.
He sent it at 1:31 a.m. on May 15 with the subject line “OSAA policy on transgender athletes ramifications” and wrote that the current OSAA policy had “major flaws,” that the impending competition of “a high level transgender athlete for McDaniel HS” was going to serve as a “major distraction for all the athletes” competing for the state championship and could rob a “2-time defending state champion” on his team of a podium spot.
He asked the OSAA to create an “open” division for transgender athletes to compete separately.
Simon noted that Parks’ letter was outside the scope of his regular duties as track coach and was sent on his personal email, leading the judge to consider it the speech of a private citizen.
Regardless, O’Kasey argued that the district did not retaliate or take any action against Parks for the letter, noting he went on to coach at the state meet the next several days that month and that his Lake Oswego High girls team won the state championship.
In a text message on the morning of May 18, athletic director Chris Coleman wrote to Parks, “We need to remind our kids to remain classy and respectful. They have transgender teammates and classmates. They are representing themselves, but our team and school.”
Coleman cautioned that student actions in the “heat of the moment” could create “a lot of blowback and negative attention” on the school and urged the coach to encourage them “not to be impulsive in their response.”
The school district subsequently learned Parks had allegedly made a vulgar remark at the Saturday state meet after the McDaniel High transgender athlete lost a 400-meter race to his runner.
The school district, O’Kasey said, was required to subsequently open an investigation after receiving a report that Parks had acted “unbecomingly, disrespectfully and insubordinately” at the meet.
Parks was overheard by another coach saying, “She beat the (expletive) dude” after his runner won, according to the district.
Dougherty said Lake Oswego High School principal Kristen Colyer’s written findings in June that Parks was “insubordinate” and had discriminated against the McDaniel transgender athlete made no reference to the alleged remark and that the district has never identified who reported hearing that comment. He argued it was being raised now “to defeat” his motion to order the district to give Parks his jobs back.
Parks, through his lawyer in court, denied making the remark and again denied it in a brief interview after court.
Park contends he did reapply and submit an application for the coaching job, but the district says he never did.
If Parks is right that the district violated his free speech and he ultimately prevails and wins at trial on the merits of his case, he likely would receive monetary damages “and be made whole for past problems,” Simon said.
But currently, he’s not facing any restriction on his free speech as a private citizen, the judge said.
Yet if he did make the offensive remark at the state meet with parents and other student athletes present, that likely would violate the district’s anti-discrimination and bullying policies, the judge said.
“If he did refer to a transgender woman athlete as an ‘effin dude,’ ” putting Parks back into the coaching job at Lake Oswego High School “could cause serious psychological harm to transgender athletes,” Simon said.
Dougherty said Parks is an accomplished coach who guided the Lake Oswego girls track team to two state championships.
Parks had an “ongoing agreement that his contract would roll over” to the next school year and was terminated in a violation of his free speech, Dougherty said.
“He doesn’t work for Lake Oswego,” she said. “There is no harm.”
Parks said he’s currently not working but privately coaching track athletes, including members of the Lake Oswego girls team.