Share and Follow
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not review the case of a suburban Chicago teacher who was terminated following controversial Facebook posts made in response to the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.
Jeanne Hedgepeth, a long-time educator at Palatine High School in Illinois, faced dismissal after posting provocative comments on social media during her summer vacation in Florida. The posts, which were critical of the protests sparked by Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, included statements about potentially needing “a gun and training” due to an alleged “civil war” and a repost suggesting the use of high-pressure washers on demonstrators.
The school district categorized Hedgepeth’s posts as “disrespectful, demeaning of other viewpoints, and racist.” Hedgepeth, however, contends that her termination infringed on her right to free speech.
“In any other scenario, such overt discrimination of viewpoints by government officials would be unacceptable,” her legal team argued. “Yet, because Hedgepeth was a public employee, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the First Amendment does not prevent the government from dismissing her based on expressions made off-duty on subjects unrelated to her professional responsibilities.”
“In any other context, such blatant viewpoint discrimination by government officials would be a nonstarter,” her lawyers wrote. “But because Hedgepeth is a public employee, the Seventh Circuit held that the First Amendment does not bar the government from firing her based on the views she expressed in off-the-job speech on topics unrelated to her work.”
The school district has argued that the incident was only the final straw.
In filings to the Supreme Court, the district wrote that Hedgepeth started to struggle with “appropriately moderating her interactions with students” immediately following the 2016 presidential election.
The teacher had already been suspended twice for “profane outbursts” at students by the time her employment was terminated, the school said.
Ultimately, the school district received 113 emails about Hedgepeth’s posts — some of which had multiple signatories, according to court filings.
“Petitioner frames this case as presenting broad questions concerning off-campus speech and ‘cancel culture,’” wrote the school district’s lawyers. “In fact, the Seventh Circuit’s fact-specific assessment of the summary-judgment record adheres to this Court’s long-established precedent and has little import beyond Petitioner’s individual case.”