Oral argument date: Oct. 31, 2023
Decision date: March 15, 2024
Background: Two school board members in California’s Poway Unified School District blocked from their social media accounts parents who posted lengthy and repetitive comments. The parents, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, posted nearly identical comments on school board members’ 42 Facebook posts, and they left 226 identical comments within a 10-minute span on one school board members’ tweets, according to court documents. The lawsuit came during a time of heightened political conflict and parental angst in school settings, including during school board meetings and against school board members. A similar case, Lindke v. Freed, arose after a city official in Port Huron City, Michigan, deleted from his personal Facebook page a citizen’s comments and blocked him. The court heard the cases together.
Question: When is a public official’s personal social media activity considered state action,and does blocking community members from viewing and interacting with a social media account used to communicate about job-related issues fall under that umbrella of state action?
Decision: 9-0 in favor of Freed; a unanimous and unsigned decision vacating 9th Circuit opinion in favor of O’Connor-Ratcliff
Majority Opinion: In the court’s decision for Lindke v. Freed, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that public officials’ social media speech is considered public only if the public official had the power to speak on the government’s behalf, and only if the official was exercising that authority when posting on social media. O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier was remanded in light of that ruling.