A federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois has ruled that Rich Township High School District 227 officials in Cook County, Ill., did not violate a guidance counselor’s First Amendment free speech rights when they fired him based on a “self-help” book he published on relationships.
Bryan Craig was a guidance counselor and girls’ basketball coach at Rich Central High School in south suburban Olympia Fields. He wrote and self-published a book entitled It’s Your Fault, and once school district officials found out about the book, the board voted unanimously to fire him. Here’s an excerpt from the book:
Your man doesn’t work, and you work very hard to pay bills, and keep food on the table. You take the check when the two of you are out for dinner and you purchase his wardrobe. Some women are okay with this, but for the majority of you who complain to your girlfriends about this: It’s Your Fault.
“Mr Craig’s conduct in this matter fell far short of our expectations and evoked outrage for me, members of this board and many others in this district who have come to expect the highest level of professionalism and sound judgment from the people they entrust with their children each day,” the Chicago Tribune quoted school board president Betty Owens as saying.
Mr Craig could have requested a review of the board’s decision, but instead he decided to file a $1 million lawsuit in federal court against the district for restraining his free speech rights.
First Amendment test in this case
In analyzing Mr Craig’s claim that the district restrained his free speech, the court applied a three-part test:
- Was Mr Craig’s speech constitutionally protected?
- Can he prove the district’s actions were motivated by his protected speech?
- Can the district show it would have taken the same action without the protected speech?
The first part includes two prongs, known as the “Connick-Pickering” test: First, does the speech in question address a matter of public concern? Second, if so, do Mr Craig’s interests in commenting on those matters outweigh the district’s interests “in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.”
Mr Craig said “the book addresses relationships between adult men and women, [and therefore must be] a matter of public concern.” The court found this assertion too vague, and you can’t win a lawsuit about free speech if all you have is a vague claim about male-female relationships. Furthermore, just making the book available to the public and claiming it is part of some public conversation was not enough, in the court’s opinion, to make it a “matter of public concern,” according to the Connick-Pickering test.
In other words, the court said the assertion about relationships was too fuzzy for the judge to determine what it meant. The concept of “relationships” includes a great many ideas, and it was not possible for the court to reach a conclusion about free speech given such a vague assertion.
In trying to determine if the book was about some other matter of public concern, despite Mr Craig’s inability to present a clear assertion, the court may have considered advice like “go ahead and let him turn you every which way” or “give him oral sex without making the ‘ugh’ face.” It found the book, on the whole, to be “little more than a lewd account of [Mr Craig]’s own sexual preferences and exploits.” Unlike Mr Craig’s characterization of the book as being about relationships,” the court’s characterization was much more specific and clear—the opposite of vague.
Now, having failed the first prong of the Connick-Pickering test, the court didn’t have to examine the second prong, but it did so anyway. The court found the book highly sexual and said there was no question it was “detrimental to the mission and functions” of the district. That is, even if the book had passed the first prong of the Connick-Pickering test, it would have failed the second.
Judgment to dismiss; remaining questions moot
Since Mr Craig’s speech was not constitutionally protected because it failed the Connick-Pickering test, there was no need to consider the remaining two questions.
