Abstract
School boards can enact rules about commenting at their public meetings, but they cannot impede someone’s right to speak, whether employees or the public. A recent federal district court case — Barrett v. Walker County School District (N.D. Ga. 2016) — raised this issue. Jim Barrett, a district employee and president of the local educators’ union, disagreed with the district’s new grading policy and tried to get on the school board agenda to share his concerns. The superintendent, who controlled access to the public comment portion of the meeting, did not approve his requests. The federal district court ruled that this violated Barrett’s First Amendments rights of free speech because it gave the superintendent unfettered discretion to approve, deny, or delay requests to speak before the board and limited the nature of issues that someone could take to the board.
Published Version
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