Education Law

Blogging Teacher Correctly Demoted

The Ninth Circuit has held in Richerson v. Beckon that a teacher who uses her blog to post comments about other employees can have adverse employment consequences taken against her. The teacher, an instructional coach and curriculum specialist, published posts on her personal blog that talked about issues that arose at work. While she never named names, the subjects of the posts were easily identifiable to her co-workers, who refused to work with her. The principal then transferred her back into a regular teaching role.

The court used Pickering as the central analysis, I was pleased to see:

     Particularly relevant to Richerson's case are the considerations of whether her speech 'disrupt[ed] co-worker relations,' 'erode[d] a close working relationship premised on personal loyalty and confidentiality,' or 'interfere[d] with the speaker's performance of her or his duties.'
     It is abundantly clear from undisputed evidence in the record that Richerson's speech had a significantly deleterious effect in each of these ways.

Right result here and right analysis. This was a relatively simple case that the court didn't mess up by harping over the Internet speech or getting tied up with Garcetti.

H/T - Mitchell Rubinstein

Full post as published by Edjurist on June 23, 2009 (boomark / email).