Key Points

  • A divided Sixth Circuit panel held that Stefanie Boone plausibly alleged that a principal's letter directing her to stop referencing school employees on social media, under threat of "all available legal remedies," was a coercive prior restraint and speech ban in violation of the First Amendment.
  • Applying the Supreme Court's NRA v. Vullo framework, the majority held that threats of civil legal action, not only criminal prosecution, can coerce speech, and that an official's lack of regulatory authority over the speaker is not dispositive.
  • The court unanimously affirmed dismissal of Boone's challenge to a directive barring her from contacting staff without administrator permission; the majority called it a content-neutral time, place and manner restriction.
  • The court affirmed dismissal of Boone's Fourteenth Amendment vagueness claim and held that she could not sue under Title IX on her own behalf as a parent.
  • Judge Ritz dissented in part, concluding that in context the letter was a firm request responding to a post perceived as threatening, not a coercive threat.

A federal appeals court on Nov. 10 revived a Michigan mother's First Amendment lawsuit against her children's school district, holding that a high school principal's letter telling her to stop naming school employees on social media or face "all available legal remedies" plausibly amounted to an unconstitutional threat.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit partly reversed a district judge's dismissal of Stefanie Boone's suit against Lowell Area Schools. Judge Davis wrote for the court, joined by Judge Mathis. Judge Ritz dissented on the First Amendment claim against the social media directive and would have thrown out the entire case.

The ruling applies the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, which held that officials may try to persuade speakers but may not coerce them into silence. The panel held that a threat of civil legal action, not only criminal prosecution, can cross that line. "A communication that portends civil consequences for protected expression is no less capable of coercion than one that invokes criminal law," Judge Davis wrote.

Boone, a certified teacher and mother of three children in the district, moderates a Facebook page called Lowell Kids 1st. Beginning in July 2021, she posted criticism of the district's alleged promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, social emotional learning and "sexually explicit" library books, often naming specific employees.

In early 2024 she posted a link to an article about a high school teacher with a Bible verse saying that whoever causes children to sin would be better off with "a great millstone fastened around his neck and drowned in the depth of the sea." Principal Steve Gough then sent Boone a letter dated Jan. 19, 2024, saying the post could "be construed as threatening in nature."

Gough asked Boone to "immediately cease and desist from any reference to any Lowell Area Schools employee on social media and/or other public communication platforms," warning that noncompliance "may result in further action including but not limited to all available legal remedies." The same letter barred her from contacting staff without permission from a principal or the superintendent, on pain of a possible no-trespass order. Boone alleged that she has since stopped speaking to her children's teachers or making public comments.

Boone sued under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. U.S. District Judge Paul Lewis Maloney of the Western District of Michigan dismissed the case, concluding that the social media directive "merely request[ed]" her cooperation.

The appeals court disagreed. Boone had challenged the directive as a prior restraint, a government order that forbids speech before it occurs, and as a ban on speech. The majority found the directive plausibly qualified as both, writing that "the invocation of 'legal remedies' for using officials' names in her posted complaints recontextualizes this nominal 'request.'"

The majority walked through four factors that the Supreme Court in Vullo called "a useful, though nonexhaustive, guide": word choice and tone, regulatory authority, how the recipient perceived the message, and whether it refers to adverse consequences. Judge Davis pointed to the letter's "legalistic language," its demand for immediate compliance and its official district letterhead.

The majority also cited the power gap between principal and parent. A company such as Amazon may shrug off a senator's letter, the court wrote, but "a school mom is less likely to possess the resources or confidence to balk at a demand to 'immediately cease and desist' or face 'all available legal remedies.'"

The majority conceded that the district has no regulatory authority over Boone's social media activity, but called that "a hurdle, not a wall," because the letterhead and legal jargon could reasonably imply state power. "Discovery may ultimately vindicate the District," Judge Davis wrote, but at the pleading stage the claim survives.

The panel unanimously upheld dismissal of Boone's challenge to the no-contact directive. "The Policy is not a gag but a funnel," Judge Davis wrote. The court added that "the right to speak does not entail a corresponding right to compel others to listen."

The judges also rejected Boone's Fourteenth Amendment claim that the directives were unconstitutionally vague, along with her challenge to Gough's remark at an April 2024 school board meeting that "there is no First Amendment right to bullying, harassment, or misinformation." Her claim under Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in federally funded education, failed because she sued on her own behalf rather than for a student, the court held.

In dissent, Judge Ritz wrote that the letter had to be read in light of Boone's "multi-year campaign" against the district and a post suggesting a teacher should be "drowned in the depth of the sea." Given that context, the dissent said, "it is difficult to read the letter as a meaningful threat of adverse action, as opposed to a formal and firm 'request' that Boone refrain from escalating further her campaign of harassing behavior against individual school employees."

Judge Ritz wrote that "a high school principal is more lightly armed, in both a literal and figurative sense, than a sheriff or a corrections officer," and that "it is unclear what legal remedies or authority the principal would even have available to him." The dissent also concluded that "Boone's alleged subjective fear of speaking out further was not reasonable."

Lawyers for Boone included Matthew S. DePerno of DePerno Law Office PLLC. The school district was represented by Bogomir Rajsic III of McGraw Morris Masud.

The case now returns to the district court. Boone's surviving claims run only against the school district, which cannot assert qualified immunity. Because a federal claim is again in the case, the district court will have jurisdiction over Boone's state-law breach of fiduciary duty claims and may consider whether they should still be dismissed.