Dean McGee
Dean McGee is Liberty Justice Center’s Educational Freedom Attorney, where he focuses on empowering parents and students to choose the educational path that best meets their needs.
The Liberty Justice Center has filed a lawsuit to hold a Kentucky school district accountable for violating the First Amendment rights of one of its board members, educational advocate Corey DeAngelis.
Throughout the fall of 2024, public officials and school districts across Kentucky violated state law by illegally using taxpayer resources to lobby against Amendment 2—a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed the state to expand educational opportunities across Kentucky.
On August 11, 2024, the Pulaski County School District illegally posted messages lobbying against Amendment 2 to its official social media pages and website. When Mr. DeAngelis criticized these unlawful actions, the district froze public discourse on the posts and temporarily blocked him from its page. These actions violate the First Amendment, which, as the Supreme Court recently recognized, prohibits government officials from blocking users and censoring comments based on their viewpoint.
After the Liberty Justice Center sent the district demand letters on August 14 and August 26, the district removed the illegal posts and unblocked Mr. DeAngelis. But despite numerous opportunities, the district declined to provide a written commitment to refrain from blocking and censoring Mr. DeAngelis and Pulaski County residents in the same way in the future. As a result, the Liberty Justice Center is pursuing legal action to hold the district accountable for its First Amendment violations.
“Public officials at all levels of government need to respect the First Amendment—and public school administrators are no exception,” said Dean McGee, Senior Attorney for Educational Freedom at the Liberty Justice Center. “The district’s attempts to censor online criticism of its illegal actions were a blatant violation of Corey’s rights and the rights of Pulaski County residents. We ask the court to ensure those violations are not repeated in the future.”
DeAngelis v. Pulaski County Board of Education was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, London Division, on January 15, 2025. Covington-based attorney Steven J. Megerle served as local counsel for the submission to the court.
The Liberty Justice Center’s legal filings in DeAngelis v. Pulaski County Board of Education are available here.
Help support everyday people as they fight for their First Amendment rights against corrupt school officials who are trying to advance their own extreme political agendas using taxpayer funds.
Dean McGee is Liberty Justice Center’s Educational Freedom Attorney, where he focuses on empowering parents and students to choose the educational path that best meets their needs.
Bridget Conlan is a Staff Attorney at Liberty Justice Center.
(The National Desk | Crisis in the Classroom)—A school choice activist sued a Kentucky school district’s board Wednesday for allegedly violating his right to free speech by blocking him from its Facebook page. Corey DeAngelis, who has over 190,000 X followers and is the executive director of the Educational Freedom...
(Tampa Free Press)—The Liberty Justice Center has initiated legal action against the Pulaski County School District in Kentucky, alleging violations of the First Amendment rights of Corey DeAngelis, an educational advocate and member of the Center’s board. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of...