Tag: suspension

  • VICTORY: Jury finds Tennessee high school student’s suspension for sharing memes violated the First Amendment

    VICTORY: Jury finds Tennessee high school student’s suspension for sharing memes violated the First Amendment

    • A Tennessee high school suspended a student after his off-campus posting of satirical Instagram memes about his principal.
    • FIRE sued, and a jury found the suspension violated the First Amendment.

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 15, 2026 — Two years after a Tennessee high school student sued Tullahoma City Schools for suspending him over Instagram memes lampooning his principal, a jury found that the school district’s actions violated the First Amendment. 

    The now 20-year-old former student is represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

    “This isn’t just a victory for our client, it’s a victory for any high school student who wants to speak their mind about school online without fear of punishment,” said FIRE senior attorney Conor Fitzpatrick. “Our client’s posts caused no disruption, and what teenagers post on social media is their parents’ business, not the government’s.”

    FIRE’s lawsuit challenged Tullahoma High School administrators’ August 2022 suspension of the student for three days during his junior year for posting three memes lampooning then-Principal Jason Quick. 

    The school cited its social media policies to justify the suspension. The student’s first meme showed Quick holding a box of vegetables with the caption, “🔥My brotha🔥.” The second depicted Quick as an anime cat wearing whiskers, cat ears, and a French maid dress. The third showed Quick’s head superimposed on a hand-drawn cartoon character being hugged by a cartoon bird. The student intended the images to be tongue-in-cheek commentary, gently lampooning a school administrator he perceived as humorless. 

    But Quick had the school suspend the student anyway, under its social media policy that banned images which “embarrass,” “discredit,” or “humiliate” another student or school staff member. Another school policy banned posts “unbecoming of a Wildcat,” the Tullahoma High School mascot. 

    Shortly after FIRE sued on the student’s behalf, the school district lifted those policies and removed the suspension from the student’s record while litigation continued.

    LAWSUIT: High school student sues after receiving suspension for posting off-campus cat meme

    A Tennessee high school student, backed by FIRE, sued his school after being suspended for posting satirical Instagram memes while off campus.


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    Today, a jury found the school district liable for suspending the student for his speech in the first place. The verdict confirms that the student’s First Amendment rights were violated by the school’s punishment. A jury also awarded the student nominal damages.

    “Thin-skinned high school principals can’t suspend students for poking fun at them outside of school,” said Fitzpatrick. “The evidence and the jury’s verdict make it clear: High school students get to use the First Amendment, not just learn about it.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them. 

    CONTACT
    Katie Stalcup, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected] 

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  • An Unjust Suspension in Oklahoma

    An Unjust Suspension in Oklahoma

    University of Oklahoma officials suspended graduate teaching assistant Mel Curth from teaching on Sunday after a student, Samantha Fulnecky, complained about getting a failing grade on an assignment. The incident has sparked a lot of debate about whether Fulnecky’s essay, which repeatedly invoked the Bible and denounced transgender people (including, reportedly, her instructor) as “demonic,” deserved a poor grade for its lack of academic rigor or if Fulnecky was unjustly punished for her religiously motivated political opinions.

    However, this debate about grading obscures the far more important question at hand about academic freedom: Should instructors be suspended from their classes without due process and proof of misconduct?

    The answer is clear, and everyone—liberal or conservative, anti-trans or pro–trans rights—should agree with this basic concept: No instructor should be suspended from teaching without being found guilty of misconduct. This is a fundamental tenet of justice: innocent until proven guilty.

    Banning an instructor from the classroom is one of the most serious violations of academic freedom because it so clearly abridges the freedom to teach. It prohibits a teacher entirely from expressing their ideas in the classroom. It deprives students of the opportunity to hear from their teacher. And it sends a chilling message to the entire campus that expressing the wrong ideas can be punished without due process. Instructors should only be removed from classes when they are committing irreparable harm to students—for example, by physically endangering them, or by refusing to teach their classes. But there is no irreparable harm in a grade dispute, because grade appeals allow students to receive a just result. Grading disputes do not justify emergency action.

    Let us consider the worst-case scenario here: The instructor gave a lousy grade to a student who called them (and all trans people) “demonic.” It might be deserving of a grade appeal and measures taken to protect the student from unfair grading. However, we have no evidence of any general misconduct or bias in grading. We have one public complaint from a particularly obnoxious student and no other allegations of any wrongdoing.

    An instructor who gives a wrong grade on an assignment to one incredibly offensive student may have fallen short of our ideals for a teacher. But even if this allegation was thoroughly investigated and definitely proven, it would not by itself justify removing an instructor from teaching as a punishment. It certainly cannot justify an interim suspension without proof of misconduct.

    Imagine if a Christian student with a Jewish instructor had referred to Jews as a “demonic” force. Would we be so quick to denounce the teacher who objected to such vile hatred and regarded it as unworthy of academic work? It’s only the hatred of trans people that sparks a very different reaction today. But even if the instructor’s response was understandable, it still could be wrong. Still, the determination by a body of faculty experts about whether it was wrong has not yet been determined, and until it is, a suspension is unjustified.

    Incredibly, this violation of basic rights by the University of Oklahoma was denounced by conservatives as inadequate. State Sen. Shane Jett (R-Shawnee), chair of the Oklahoma Freedom Caucus, declared, “Placing the instructor on leave is not sufficient. It’s another weak and cowardly response.” The Freedom Caucus called for “cuts to state funding for higher education institutions until free speech and religious liberty are verifiably protected so conservatives are no longer targeted.”

    The conservatives clamoring for blood in Oklahoma should question whether they really want to endorse the idea of administrators suspending any professor accused of saying or doing something that upsets a student.

    As I have long argued, interim suspensions violate academic freedom by suppressing speech without proof of misconduct. It’s time for people on all sides in all cases to condemn interim suspensions on a universal, consistent and principled basis.

    If the Oklahoma TA is found to be guilty of violating academic standards after a fair hearing, and if the determination of academic experts is that she made a terrible mistake and is incapable of learning from it, then a suspension from teaching could be justified. But academic freedom requires due process, and we fundamentally betray it when we punish people before finding them guilty of misconduct.

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  • Law professor sues University of Kentucky after suspension over criticizing Israel

    Law professor sues University of Kentucky after suspension over criticizing Israel

    The University of Kentucky suspended tenured professor Ramsi Woodcock in July for his comments about Israel. Now, Woodcock is suing his university for violating his First Amendment rights.

    Woodcock’s lawsuit, filed last week in federal district court in Kentucky, asks the judge for two things: let him go back to teaching and stop the university from enforcing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. 

    TAKE ACTION: Stop University of Kentucky’s Free Speech Crackdown

    The lawsuit lays out a damning timeline of UK’s abuse of his First Amendment rights. Woodcock, long an outspoken critic of Israel, remained steadily employed at UK for seven years, gaining tenure in 2022 and a promotion to full professorship this year. But less than two weeks after his promotion, UK removed him from teaching and banned him from campus. This was purportedly because of unspecified complaints about his  petition to a faculty listserv in March 2024, more than a year earlier, calling for global war against Israel and its annihilation. On his website, antizionist.net, he claims Israel is waging a genocide and that the world has a “moral duty” to step in. 

    After UK suspended Woodcock, describing his online petition as “calling for the destruction of a people based on national origin,” FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal resources for faculty free of charge, intervened with UK to explain that Woodcock’s speech was protected by the First Amendment. While members of the public or UK’s community may have taken offense to Woodcock’s strong views about Israel, faculty members have the First Amendment right to present arguments on matters of public concern outside the classroom. Using Woodcock’s speech as a cudgel to remove him from the classroom was a clear violation of his expressive rights as a faculty member at UK.

    The FLDF also announced that Joe Childers, a Kentucky-based attorney, would defend Woodcock through the university’s investigative process. Now Woodcock is taking his fight to court. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is representing Woodcock in the lawsuit, with help from the Chicago-based law firm Kapitan Gomaa Law. Childers is serving as local counsel. 

    “The University’s suspension of Professor Woodcock violates his First Amendment right of freedom of expression and his right to procedural due process, discriminates against him in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, threatens the democratic principles which sustain this Country’s form of government, and degrades the quality of education at the University of Kentucky,” the lawsuit states.

    A university cannot censor the ideas it dislikes out of existence. And it certainly cannot punish its own faculty for making provocative arguments both at the university and in the court of public opinion. FIRE will keep readers apprised about the status of Woodcock’s lawsuit. 

    If you are a public university or college professor facing investigations or punishment for your speech, contact the Faculty Legal Defense Fund: Submit a case or call the 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533).

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  • Two judges halt Trump administration’s suspension of SNAP benefits

    Two judges halt Trump administration’s suspension of SNAP benefits

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    Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled Friday that the Trump administration must continue to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the ongoing government shutdown. A federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order on Friday that blocks the federal government from suspending SNAP funding, the National Council of Nonprofits, a party in the lawsuit against the federal government, said in an emailed press release.
    • In her ruling, Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts said that the decision to suspend SNAP payments was “based on the erroneous conclusion” that the USDA could not use contingency funds for SNAP. “This court has now clarified that Defendants are required to use those Contingency Funds as necessary for the SNAP program,” Talwani wrote. 
    • The Trump administration has until Monday to tell the Massachusetts court if it will move forward with funding SNAP benefits, even partially, for November and the timeline for doing so. 

    Dive Insight:

    The rulings come as the grocery industry braces for an unprecedented lapse in SNAP benefit distribution, given it’s unclear how the federal government will respond to the decisions and the logistics of loading funds onto EBT cards.

    In a notice on its website, the USDA claimed that funding for SNAP benefits is set to run out due to the ongoing government shutdown and, as a result, the agency will not issue benefits on Nov. 1. 

    It’s unclear if the Trump administration plans to appeal to the rulings or how quickly federal funding for SNAP could get loaded onto program participants’ EBT cards.

    The Massachusetts judge’s decision is tied to the lawsuit 25 states and Washington, D.C., filed against the Trump administration earlier this week, arguing that the USDA had planned to unlawfully halt the food nutrition program’s benefits for November. In the lawsuit, the states argued that the USDA is required to continue providing benefits as long as it has funding. The complaint claimed that the USDA has access to at least $6 billion in contingency funds appropriated by Congress, noting that the federal agency has appropriated funds to temporarily fund WIC, but has not done so for SNAP.

    “USDA’s claim that the SNAP contingency funds cannot be used to fund SNAP benefits during an appropriation lapse is contrary to the plain text of the congressional appropriations law,” the lawsuit stated.

    On Thursday, a coalition of nonprofits, advocacy groups and eight cities filed a lawsuit in a Rhode Island district court, seeking to prevent the suspension of SNAP funding.

    Nearly 42 million people participated in SNAP and received an average of $188 each in May, according to the most recently available USDA data. Some states, such as Virginia and Vermont, had prepared for temporary funding from their state funds for SNAP participants’ EBT cards to help curtail food insecurity. 

    In addition to putting people at higher risk of food insecurity, delayed November SNAP benefits would have created logistical challenges for retailers. Last week, Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association President and CEO Alex Baloga said in an emailed statement that delayed SNAP benefits could create “an operational nightmare” for food retailers and distributors across the state, possibly impairing accurate demand forecasting and leading to bare shelves of fresh foods like produce, dairy and meat.

    The potential loss of SNAP funding added to a growing list of disruptions that grocers are facing with the federal nutrition assistance program. A number of grocers are currently preparing for restrictions that go into effect next year across a dozen states that will make certain items, like soda or candy, ineligible for SNAP. Upfront costs to implement purchasing restrictions are expected to total just over $305 million for grocers, according to a report from the National Grocers Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores and FMI – The Food Industry Association, which noted that grocers are projected to shell out more than $281 million annually for compliance. 

    The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed this summer includes $186 billion in SNAP cuts over 10 years and tightens eligibility requirements for the program. Grocers are bracing for a potential decrease in SNAP sales as states implement the changes to participant eligibility, Stephanie Johnson, group vice president of government relations and political affairs at the NGA, told Grocery Dive in July.

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