Today, the First Amendment Coalition calls on Allen Brooks, president of the Merced City School District Board of Education, to stop making statements that threaten the fundamental rights of civic participation and free expression. For more than two and a half years, the board’s president has regularly warned members of the public that “derogatory comments against district employees or others made in a board meeting can be actionable as defamation under certain circumstances,” before comment periods of its public meetings.
FAC Legal Fellow Annie Cappetta sent a letter to Brooks, explaining that this threat violates the First Amendment, as well as California law, which “guarantees absolute immunity for statements made in legislative proceedings such as school board meetings whenever the statements have some relation or connection to the proceeding.” “More fundamentally, critique of government is democracy, not defamation,” Cappetta wrote. The letter asks Brooks to disavow the statement and publicly affirm the board’s commitment to the First Amendment.