Do viral stories protect our 1st Amendment freedoms?
The case of a Pennsylvania teacher fired because of blog posts that criticized her own students has taken an interesting turn, as her lawyers claim viral Internet and television interest in the story protect her First Amendment rights.
The teacher, Philadelphias National Constitution Center is the first and only nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed: the U.S. Constitution. Constitution Daily, the Centers blog, offers smart commentary and conversation about constitutional issues in the news, drawing insights from Americas history and a variety of expert contributors., caused a quite a stir back in 2011 and became a national media figure. Munroe lost her job at a suburban Philadelphia public high school after writing a series of blog posts that called her students jerks, rat like and whiny, among other things.
Monroes attorneys filed a civil suit against the Central Bucks school district in 2012, seeking $5 million in damages. In late July 2014, a federal district court judge in Philadelphia ruled against Munroe. But her attorneys have appealed.
Third District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe only decided one of two questions presented in the lawsuit. Rufe said Munroes statements werent protected by the First Amendment under a test established in two Supreme Court cases, so she didnt need to decide if the statements directly caused her termination.
In 1968 in a Supreme Court decision calledPickering v. Board of Educationand a later decision from 2006,Garcetti v. Ceballos, a balancing test was set by the Court about public employee statements and the First Amendment.
Commonly known as the Pickering test, a plaintiff such as Munroe must prove that her First Amendment interests as a public employee, and also as a citizen, in commenting on matters of public concern outweigh her public employers need to promote efficient public services.
Judge Rufe found that in this case, Munroes speech, in both effect and tone, was sufficiently disruptive so as to diminish any legitimate interest in its expression, and thus her [First Amendment] expression was not protected.
Rufe stated that, although Munroe may have occasionally written as a private citizen on matters of public concern, she chose to do so in an opprobrious tone that was likely to generate a strong reaction from anyone connected with the school who read it.
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Do viral stories protect our 1st Amendment freedoms?