Summary
➡ Judicial Watch is unique in its mission to ensure U.S. government officials follow the laws as expected by the American people. Despite facing challenges in court, they remain determined and persistent in their efforts.
Transcript
She had worked there for 20 years. Jeannie Hedgepeth had worked in her school district for 20 years, and she posted comments on Facebook criticizing the riots, the violence, the lootings in Chicago, and the aftermath of the George Floyd shooting. And the lower court, we sued on her behalf under the First Amendment in federal court. And the lower court said that the school district was in its rights in policing the speech of its employees. We’re like, well, how is that possible? She wasn’t in school. She was posting during the summer to a private Facebook group, and it was about events of public importance, obviously, but it wasn’t on school-related matters or material.
I mean, if you can be fired for commenting about anything, and someone doesn’t like it as a school teacher, you have no First Amendment rights as a school teacher. But it was a really outrageous case, and so we were adamant that the court should deal with it. But instead, the lower court didn’t want to, so it dismissed it, and so we appealed it to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. As we note, Hedgepeth made the posts on her private Facebook page while vacationing after the end of the school year, just as some of the most severe violence was occurring.
In her post, Hedgepeth recommended studying Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell is one of my favorite public intellectuals, great conservative, black American. He’s still out there doing that. I think he’s 90 years old. I think he’s north of 90 now, and he hasn’t stopped his excellent work. He’s just great. I encourage you to go and find out more and read more Tom Sowell, if you haven’t already. And Jeannie just described him as, I say, a treasure and a true seeker, and she praised political commentator and activist Candace Owens and talk show host Larry Elder. And I was just on Larry’s show the other day.
It’s on our YouTube channel, on social media. You can watch it. And as we note, her First Amendment rights were violated by the firing. I mean, she said the following from the beach. I don’t want to go home tomorrow. Now that the Civil War has begun, I want to move. An individual responded, follow your gut, move. Hedgepeth answered, I need a gun in training. So she was worried about her safety. An individual replied, me too. Another individual posted a meme that same day suggesting her eyes could be stopped with a septic tank truck and pressure cannon.
Hedgepeth reposted the meme, obviously ingest, adding, you think this would work. Why would you get fired for that? And here she’s recommending Sowell. I highly recommend studying Tom Sowell, who’s now retired and in his 80s, a treasure, a true seeker. Does real research and analysis. Praises Candace. Praises Larry Elder. Larry speaks the truth with great women, with a great sense of humor and facts, not feelings. And then she cites statistic cues related to criminality and demographics, all sorts of debates about crime and race in America. Straightforward, political commentary, and she got fired supposedly because someone complained about it.
Well, that’s not good enough. That is, as we note in the appeal, providing a heckler’s veto to your First Amendment rights, or specifically her First Amendment rights. All of her posts were on a personal Facebook page. None of her posts identified her as a teacher or an employee of a school district, the district issue here. Nor did Hedgepeth post them in her capacity as a teacher or a district 211 employee, which is the district. None of the persons with whom Hedgepeth exchanged Facebook posts were current students. So really important case. So she’s asking for damages from the school district, the high school district, which is 211, so there’s a school district in the high school district, and certain district board members and officials who participated directly in her firing.
So she wants accountability. And so our lead lawyer here at Judicial Watch, Paul Orphanides, my colleague of decades, was out in Chicago arguing on behalf of Jeanne Hedgepeth at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. And it’s available, the full hearing or oral argument is available online. And here’s a select excerpt of Paul’s arguments before the 7th Circuit appellate panel. We are here on the grant of summary judgment on plaintiff section 1983 claim for violation of her First Amendment rights. Plaintiff was a tenured teacher with 20 plus years of experience at Palatine High School in Palatine, Illinois.
She was terminated for comments. She posted on her private Facebook page following the unprecedented looting, rioting, and violence in Chicago and across the country in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in May of 2020. Her comments were neither at work nor about work, but instead addressed important current events. She posted them on vacationing in Florida after the school year has ended. If speech under those conditions can provide the basis for termination, then teachers effectively have no free speech rights left. There was no one advocating violence or civil war. That’s just a false construct. But that’s the nature of the dispute.
That’s why a jury needs to decide how these posts should properly be interpreted. I don’t think she was disparaging anyone’s common views. She was advocating, she was challenging the traditional notion or the traditional views on race in the United States. And she did so citing scholars. Thomas Sowell, she encouraged a young adult to read Thomas Sowell. That is somehow disparaging people’s views. I don’t think so. She cited accurate statistics. I mean, this is the fundamental dispute, is how do you interpret these posts? And we think that a jury has to decide that issue. It’s not something that can be decided by a court.
The overwhelming majority of the people that were complaining or are contacting communicating with the district were outsiders. They pretended to be members of the community. We don’t know that for a fact. Some were part of an organized campaign. Some were put together by a gentleman who was seeking to get elected to the board and ended up did getting elected to the board. So he used this as a vehicle to advance his political ambitions. Our tally, nine parents, five students. That’s it. That’s really not very impressive when you’re going to weigh that against a teacher’s First Amendment rights.
But speech that is not at work, not about work, not even made during the school year. She was on the beach in Florida. And then if you actually read her posts, they are nothing like what they presented here. That’s another factual dispute. Of those nine parents, four were supportive. Four were critical. One was a comment. Yeah, this is definitely in your groups. Okay. So Paul did a great job there. You can listen to the full argument. I’m sure there will be a link below. And we’ll probably post the full argument on our website, our YouTube channel, and our other channels as well on X, et cetera, rumble.
And you’ll hear the judge’s questions. And it’s always hard to read these appellate panels. So what happens is typically you go, so Paul’s representing Jeannie Hedgepeth, who I understand was there at the hearing. And at the appellate level, there are three judges. And they ask questions. So it’s kind of like what you hear at the Supreme Court. The appellate level is one level below jurisdictionally under the Supreme Court. And so the three judges were asking questions. And sometimes, oftentimes, you can get a feel for where the panel may be going based on the nature of the questions.
Here, it was difficult to tell. So we don’t know what the panel’s going to rule. But we know what the facts and the law are that we think should dictate how the panel rules. But we’ll see if the judges agree with us. So I encourage you to listen to the full argument. And you’ll hear both sides, Paul’s side and the lawyer for our defendant’s side. But you’ll, I think, be happy to hear and see evidence of Judicial Watch’s great work in the courts. I mean, I’m happy to come on and talk about Paul’s great work. I’m happy to come on and talk about Judicial Watch’s work.
But what I’m doing is I’m talking about the hard work of our lawyers and investigators. And I’m giving voice to them and highlighting for you what our team does on a day-to-day basis. It’s not just me yelping and whining and complaining. It’s me disclosing, explaining, and educating about the material that Judicial Watch has uncovered through its FOIA cases, about the importance of our litigation to uphold the rule of law and protect the U.S. Constitution, to make sure government officials obey the laws that the American people have expected from them, obey the laws as the American people expects from them.
And there’s really nothing comparable in the United States, let alone the world, to what Judicial Watch does. So, you know, we’re just not going to give up, you know, within reason. Because sometimes we just don’t have a way to move forward in a court if the court rules against us. But we’re persistent where we can be. We’re persistent where we can be. We’re persistent where we can be. [tr:trw].
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