For more than two and a half years, the Merced City School District Board of Education president has opened the public comment period of school board meetings with a warning to commenters. The president announces that “derogatory comments against district employees or others made in a board meeting can be actionable as defamation under certain circumstances.”
This statement violates the First Amendment and California law. Today FAC sent this letter to the school board informing it that such threats are unconstitutional, emphasizing that “critique of government is democracy, not defamation.”