The Liberty Justice Center Continues to Hold School Districts Accountable to First Amendment Free Speech Rights

(Clearlake, CA)—On October 21^st,  Corey DeAngelis, a member of the Liberty Justice Center’s Board of Directors, along with the local chapter of Moms for Liberty chairman Beth Bourne, were blocked from Facebook pages run by Konocti Unified School District after they asked the District to respond to disturbing conduct by one of its teachers. The District also disabled its comments following the inquiries.

On Saturday, October 18^th, during the “No Kings” protests taking place in Clearlake, California, one of the district’s middle school teachers was captured on video purportedly celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death. The individual in the video is reportedly a teacher at Obsidian Middle School, located in Konocti Unified School District. After members of the public, including Mr. DeAngelis and Ms. Bourne, requested the District address the incident on its social media pages, the District blocked them, disabled their comments, and deleted Mr. DeAngelis’ comments.

Official social media pages for government entities may not engage in viewpoint discrimination or suppress speech based on the speaker’s perspective. The First Amendment prohibits public school officials from blocking critics simply because they dislike the message.

Mr. DeAngelis has faced this kind of viewpoint discrimination in the past. Earlier this year, the Liberty Justice Center secured a federal consent decree in DeAngelis v. Pulaski County Board of Education after another school district blocked him on its official social media pages for criticisms of its efforts to illegally lobby against education reform using taxpayer resources. Under the consent decree, the District was ordered to cease using social media to suppress criticism of the district, to not engage in viewpoint-based restrictions on social media, and to commit to First Amendment educational training for its communications staff.

Similarly, in September, the Liberty Justice Center sent a demand letter to San Jacinto Unified School District after they blocked Mr. DeAngelis from the District’s account on X, for raising concerns when a San Jacinto teacher publicly celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk on social media. The demand letter asked the District to voluntarily make the same commitments determined in DeAngelis v. Pulaski County Board of Education without the need for litigation, which they did.

The Liberty Justice Center has sent a similar demand letter to Konocti Unified School District and its officials, outlining the same requests, including unblocking both Mr. DeAngelis and Ms. Bourne. If the District fails to comply, the Liberty Justice Center is prepared to pursue all appropriate legal remedies to protect Mr. DeAngelis’ and Ms. Bourne’s constitutional rights.

The Liberty Justice Center’s demand letter to Konocti Unified School District can be found here.