Lawsuit alleges Becker Public Schools policy restricts free speech, mandatory reporting for educators

A lawsuit filed against Becker Public Schools (ISD 726) claims a district policy approved this spring violates the free speech provision of the state constitution against educators.

In a news release, Education Minnesota announced the lawsuit’s filing by the organization’s local affiliate, the Becker Education Association.

According to Education Minnesota, the lawsuit argues a plan approved by the Becker School Board on May 2 “violates the free speech provision of the state constitution and several state laws.”

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reviewed the district’s communications plan that was approved in May. The key components of the plan include, “… messaging should position Becker Public Schools as a collaborative, ‘community centered’ school district …” and “internal communication must be positive and a priority.”

Another key component prohibits employees from making statements “to the media, individuals, or entities outside the District relating to student or personnel matters…” During the May School Board meeting, district leaders explained that guideline was designed to protect staff from feeling obligated to speak to the press after receiving a media request.

The plan also outlines target audiences, a media relations plan, and approved logos and school colors.

It provides faculty and staff a standard email signature to use, which the lawsuit claims is “intended to bar staff from including their pronouns in their signature.”

Education Minnesota President Denise Specht believes overall the new plan is too broad.

“Besides infringing on free speech and impacting working conditions for teachers, it really does prevent educators from doing things like mandatory reporting on child abuse and maltreatment, from reporting through the Whistleblower Act of malfeasance if they see it in the district, from reporting health and safety concerns from OSHA, from reporting human rights violations,” said Education Minnesota President Denise Specht.

A supplement brief filed on Thursday additionally argues, “The Board did not pursue the creation of such a plan until after a raucous work session in which individuals engaged in the expressive act of opposing homophobic speech, and after Union members spoke on matters of a public concern — namely, student safety — and were quoted in media reports about the environment for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC students in Becker.”

Becker Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Schmidt declined our request for an interview but issued the following statement in response to the lawsuit:

“We have been made aware of recent court filings in connection with a legal action challenging certain aspects of the School District’s new communication plan. We disagree with the claims and assertions being made in those filings, and believe the lawsuit misconstrues the purpose and effect of language in the School District’s plan. Because the judicial system is the more appropriate forum in which to address these issues, the School District will respond through the legal proceedings before the Court.”

Specht calls policies imposed by the school board unacceptable.

“Educators should be able to speak the truth about what’s happening in their schools to parents and the rest of their communities,” a statement from Specht read. “This gag order, and policies like it, are unacceptable. Our union will resist them everywhere.”

Teachers do have a right to speak on controversial matters, according to University of Minnesota Media Ethics and Law Professor Jane Kirtley. As a government entity, the school district is subject to the First Amendment.

“Because they’re a government entity, they have an obligation not to impede legitimate public discourse and they need to remember that teachers have the right to engage in conversations and debate about important public issues,” she said. “A private company, like 3M for example, would not be subject to the First Amendment.”

There are limits to the First Amendment. Kirtley explained, for example, obscenity is not protected.

In addition, Kirtley said, “There is some authority from 2006 that say government employees do not have the same rights as the general public when they are fulfilling their job basically. Insofar as there is an attempt to deal with what teachers would say in the classroom, there might be some authority for there to be an imposition of these kinds of restrictions on speech. I say ‘might’ because there is a counterbalancing issue here which is academic freedom. Even K through 12 teachers, not just university professors, have academic freedom to a certain extent.”

Any restrictions to speech have to be narrow and specific, according to Kirtley.

“One of the things that is so complicated about these kinds of restrictions is they are really fact specific and I could imagine a situation where a court examining the substance of this down the line may uphold part of it and strike down other parts of it as unconstitutional,” she said.

Read the lawsuit here: