Marietta DJ: Cobb schools motion to dismiss parents' 1st Amendment lawsuit fails in fed Court

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Cobb Schools' motion to dismiss First Amendment lawsuit denied

• By Isabelle Manders | iman...@mdjonline.com

 

A photograph from the “Replace Ragsdale” rally held by the Cobb Community Care Coalition in the Cobb County School District central office parking lot before the September 2023 school board meeting. Melissa Marten stands second from right.

The Cobb County School District’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit from two Cobb parents who allege their First Amendment rights were violated during a school board meeting has been denied in federal court.

 

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross ruled on March 27 that the case can move forward, finding the parents plausibly allege a First Amendment violation. The judge further rejected the district’s arguments for dismissal, including qualified immunity for individual officials, as well as the parents' request for a preliminary injunction.

The district has indicated it intends to appeal the decision.

Jennifer Peterson and Melissa Marten filed a federal lawsuit against the school district in late 2024, arguing they were blocked from speaking critically about the school district during a school board meeting the year prior.

 

Peterson and Marten say that before the September 2023 meeting of the Cobb Board of Education, district staff made a last minute switch to the method of public comment sign up in order to bar them, and others with viewpoints critical of the district, from speaking.

The change in protocol also caused a chaotic scramble that ended with several minor injuries, as reported by the MDJ at the time.

The September 2023 meeting came just weeks after the school board voted 4-3, along party lines, to uphold Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s termination of Due West Elementary teacher Katie Rinderle, who was fired for reading a book about a nonbinary child to students.

 

Community members had organized — and notified the district of their plans to hold — a “Replace Ragsdale” rally in the headquarters’ parking lot ahead of the meeting as they waited to sign up for public comment, per previous reporting.

That rally, according to the suit, had enough people to fill all 15 available public comment slots. Once district employees realized the meeting’s speakers would be a barrage of opposition, the suit alleges, they moved the sign up spot to specifically remove their critics from the line.

 

“Defendants intentionally manipulated sign-in procedures for public comment to limit viewpoints critical of Cobb County School District officials and contentious policies,” the original complaint reads.

At all meetings prior to the one in September 2023, public commenters signed up to speak on an iPad in the lobby of the district headquarters, 30 minutes before the start of the meeting. Rally-goers waited outside for approximately two hours before moving into the lobby, anticipating that was where the sign up would begin.

 

According to open records obtained by the Cobb Community Care Coalition, of which Peterson and Marten are members, per the order, district staff referred to those at the rally as “bad guys” and indicated they wanted the public comment procedure to be changed.

Six employees who exchanged messages — including Chief Strategy and Accountability Officer John Floresta, Director of Content and Marketing Julian Coca and Press Relations Coordinator Nan Kiel — were named as defendants in the suit alongside Ragsdale and the district.

 

Coca now serves as executive director of communications and Kiel as director of media and public relations.

In September 2023, Kiel told the MDJ the sign-in location was moved “from the narrow entrance to the Board room to allow the large crowd easy access.”

In its motion to dismiss, the district argued that the lawsuit failed to state a valid First Amendment claim, that the district itself could not be held liable for staff actions and that individual employees were protected by qualified immunity.

Judge Ross rejected those arguments at this stage.

 

“Contrary to defendants’ first argument, the complaint alleges facts that are sufficient to show that plaintiffs were prevented from speaking at the September board meeting because of their viewpoint and, thus, plausibly alleges a First Amendment violation,” Ross wrote.

The court also held that Ragsdale could qualify as a final policymaker for purposes of district liability, writing his alleged decision to change the sign-in location without notice “was not subject to reasonable review.”

On qualified immunity, the court said officials are not shielded when engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

 

“In sum, because the principle was clearly established before September 14, 2023, individual defendants had notice that their viewpoint-discrimination-motivated conduct was unconstitutional,” Ross wrote. “Qualified immunity does not apply.”

However, the judge denied Peterson and Marten’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have barred the district from altering public comment procedures in a similar way.

Ross found the parents failed to show an imminent risk of future harm, noting they have since signed up for public comment and that the district has changed its sign-in process and location.

 

“Under these facts, plaintiffs fail to show that defendants’ conduct has chilled their speech or that they continue to encounter efforts preventing them from speaking at board meetings,” Ross said. “Rather, they speculate that because the change in the board’s sign-in process is not in any written policy, it does not foreclose defendants from repeating their viewpoint-discriminatory conduct.”

The school district pointed to the judge’s decision to dismiss Peterson and Marten’s preliminary injunction request in a statement to the Journal Monday.

 

“Although we aren’t able to comment on the specifics of any potential case, the district does appreciate the court’s ruling that ‘members of the Cobb Care Coalition’, a political action group created by three candidates who currently are or have run for election against Cobb Board members, suffered no injury to justify an injunction," a district spokesperson said.

Jennifer Susko and Micheal Garza, the candidates currently challenging sitting board members Nichelle Davis and David Chastain, respectively, are both co-founders of the coalition. Another co-founder, Andrew Cole, unsuccessfully ran against incumbent Brad Wheeler in 2024.

 

“As Judge Ross noted, plaintiffs ‘fail to show that defendants’ conduct has chilled their speech or that they continue to encounter efforts preventing them from speaking at board meetings,’” the spokesperson said. “While the district disagrees with the court’s decision to allow the rest of their claims to move forward, we do appreciate the court's dismissal and will be appealing the decision to allow the case to continue.”

The district has 30 days from the order date to file a formal response to the lawsuit.