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Ninth Circuit Rules Against School Trustee For Blocking Parents On Social Media
In the March edition of Education Matters, we reported on the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed. In those decisions, the Supreme Court held that public officials engage in state action under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 when they block users or delete comments on social media only if they both (1) possess actual authority to speak on the State’s behalf on a particular matter and (2) purport to exercise that authority when speaking on social media. The Supreme Court remanded the O’Connor-Ratcliff case to the Ninth Circuit to apply this two-part test. The Ninth Circuit has now issued its decision on remand.
Christopher and Kimberly Garnier are parents of students in the Poway Unified School District. They frequently posted lengthy, repetitive comments on the Facebook and Twitter pages maintained by District Trustees Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane. The Trustees used those pages to communicate about Board activities, promote District events, share meeting information, and encourage public input. In late 2017, after two years of increasingly frequent criticism from the Garniers, Trustee O’Connor-Ratcliff blocked both parents from her Facebook page and blocked Christopher Garnier from her Twitter account. Trustee Zane also blocked the Garniers from his Facebook page.
The Garniers sued under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, alleging that the Trustees violated their First Amendment rights by excluding them from what they argued were public forums. After a bench trial, the district court ruled in the Garniers’ favor and issued injunctive relief. The district court found that the Trustees acted under color of state law and that the indefinite blocking was not narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Trustees appealed. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s decision and remanded with instructions to apply the two-part test announced in the Lindke decision.
On remand, the Ninth Circuit first addressed whether the case against Zane, who had left office. Both parties agreed the case was moot. Because Zane no longer served on the Board and showed no intent to return to public office, the Ninth Circuit remanded the claim against Zane with instructions to dismiss.
Next, the Ninth Circuit applied the first step of the Lindke test to the claims against O’Connor-Ratcliff. The Ninth Circuit found that O’Connor-Ratcliff did possess actual authority to speak on behalf of the State. State law authorizes school boards to inform the public about educational programs. PUSD’s bylaws allow Trustees to use electronic communications, including social media, to share District information. The bylaws also identify the Board president—O’Connor-Ratcliff’s role at the time—as someone authorized to speak publicly for the Board. The court rejected her argument that she lacked authority because the District had not approved her pages as official platforms. The Lindke test focuses on the official’s authority, not on whether the account is labeled official. The court also rejected her claim that the pages remained campaign sites, finding no requirement that social media pages be converted or reauthorized. The court concluded that O’Connor-Ratcliff had actual authority to speak on PUSD’s behalf.
At step two, the court found that O’Connor-Ratcliff purported to exercise that authority when she posted. Her social media pages identified her as “President, Poway Unified School District Board of Education” and labeled her a “Government Official.” She used the pages almost exclusively for District business and provided her official PUSD email address. She included no disclaimers and maintained a separate personal Facebook page. The court cited posts where she announced the firing and hiring of the PUSD superintendent—one of which came before any official District announcement. She also posted Board meeting dates, shared agenda materials, and invited community participation in budget and hiring processes. Because she blocked the Garniers from the entire page, and they sought to comment on posts made in her official capacity, the court held that the blocking satisfied Lindke’s second prong.
The Ninth Circuit held that O’Connor-Ratcliff acted under color of state law when she blocked the Garniers. It affirmed the district court’s ruling that she violated their First Amendment rights. It remanded the claim against Zane with instructions to dismiss it as moot.
Garnier v. O’Connor-Ratcliff, 136 F.4th 1181 (9th Cir. 2025).