Court of Appeals denies hearing for Walker County Schools on public comments policy

Walker County Schools Superintendent Damon Raines has defended the school board's public commenting policy, which requires prospective speakers to meet with him prior to a board meeting. Justices in the U.S. District Court and the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals have ruled this policy to be unconstitutional.
Walker County Schools Superintendent Damon Raines has defended the school board's public commenting policy, which requires prospective speakers to meet with him prior to a board meeting. Justices in the U.S. District Court and the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals have ruled this policy to be unconstitutional.

For the third time in three years, federal judges have ruled against the Walker County, Ga., school district's public commenting policy.

U.S. Court of Appeals justices declined on May 2 to hold a rehearing in the district's case against Jim Barrett, which the school system already lost twice. Barrett sued the district in 2015, arguing that its policies for how people can address the board of education violate the First Amendment.

photo Attorney Craig Goodmark, left, talks to the media Wednesday alongside Dr. Jim Barrett, Gerry Weber and Michael T. McGonigle outside the Walker County School Board in October 2017, after the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Barrett against the school system. Goodmark says Superintendent Damon Raines and the school board have wasted taxpayer money defending their public comment policy in court.

In February 2016, U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy agreed. The school board appealed.

In October, a three-judge panel in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Murphy's ruling. The school board appealed again, asking for another hearing. The justices said no.

"I don't know how many federal judges have to tell him before the superintendent gets the message," said Barrett, an eight-grade social studies teacher and the president of the Walker County Association of Educators. "At some point, the superintendent has to be held accountable. And the board needs to hold him accountable."

The federal judges took issue with a couple of elements of the school system's policy. First, to speak to the board during a meeting, requesters have to first meet with Superintendent Damon Raines. The requesters will tell Raines what they want to talk about. Raines then will investigate the topic for 10 work days and return with a written response.

If the requesters still want to speak at the meeting, they have to submit a written request at least one week in advance. Murphy criticized the school district for this policy. In particular, it does not provide a deadline for when Raines has to meet with the requester. In theory, he can hold them off for several weeks.

Also, a part of the policy states that speakers cannot criticize school employees.

"The policy, on its face, prohibits all complaints about employees, not just those complaints that would qualify as sensitive personnel matters," Murphy wrote in a ruling permanently enjoining the school district from enforcing the policy.

Said Craig Goodmark, an attorney for Barrett: "We're pleased with the decision. There has been too much time and money by the school district being spent on an issue that we believe is clear."

In October, U.S. Court of Appeals justices agreed with Murphy. They said the policy gives Raines, "Unbridled discretion to prohibit free speech." The justices also criticized other parts of the system's policy. For example, a requester can't speak on the same topic that several other speakers have discussed. And a speaker can't take on a topic that Raines deems disruptive or abusive.

Goodmark said after that ruling that the case would go back to U.S. District Court, where Murphy would decide whether to award Barrett damages for the school system's policy.

photo Jim Barrett is an eight-grade social studies teacher and the president of the Walker County Association of Educators.

After the October ruling, attorneys for the school system filed their objection, arguing that Murphy and the U.S. Court of Appeals justices misread the law. They argued that the system can put limits on public speech because the meeting is a "limited public forum." The limits simply need to be reasonable and viewpoint neutral.

They also argued that the policy does not give the superintendent power to block someone from speaking. The requester simply has to play by the rules first, meeting in private with Raines. Also, the attorneys argued that Barrett did not actually suffer any harm from the events leading up to the lawsuit, giving him no standing in this case.

Barrett, the president of the Walker County Association of Educators, originally planned to speak at a school board meeting in February 2015 about standards-based grading. In part, the policy allows students to retake portions of a test in which they have performed poorly. Barrett met with Raines on Jan. 28, 2015. Raines gave him a response on Feb. 9. Barrett then wrote a letter, requesting to speak at the Feb. 17 meeting. However, Raines denied his request because he received the letter on Feb. 11.

Raines then put Barrett on the schedule for the March 10 meeting. Barrett did not show up. He told the Times Free Press he was already planning to file his lawsuit at that point.

During a hearing in the Court of Appeals, Raines defended the system's policy, saying it will "resolve issues at [the] earliest times as possible for the efficient operation of the meetings and to preserve the decorum of the board meetings."

Raines did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday. Neither did the school system's attorneys, Patrick Ouzts and Randall Farmer. Barrett also did not return calls seeking comment.

Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.

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