The public conflict that escalated into a legal challenge between current and former board members of School District 49 reached a verdict on Thursday, which found that its board president had violated constitutional rights during a public meeting.

Deb Schmidt and Kelly Kohls filed a federal lawsuit against the school district shortly after they were removed from a February 2023 board meeting for holding up signs calling for the resignations of three sitting Board of Education members.

District 49 faces lawsuit over alleged free speech violations

Then-board President John Graham paused the meeting to tell the two that they violated decorum and gave them the option to either put their signs down or leave, otherwise police would be called.

When they refused, Graham again halted the meeting to go into recess and have security remove the two from the building. Schmidt and Kohls alleged that they had suffered “injury and damages in having their core political speech stifled and censored” and deprived of their rights under the First and 14th Amendments of the Constitution.

A jury for the U.S. District Court for Colorado unanimously agreed that Graham had taken actions against Schmidt and Kohls based upon the viewpoints expressed on their signs, that he had deprived them of their First Amendment rights, and that this deprivation stemmed from a board policy or practice.

The jury also found that the defendants didn’t prove that the restrictions on speech were reasonable for the purpose of the board meeting.

“Public bodies need to understand that they have boundaries, that they cannot subvert or ignore our constitutional rights,” Kohls said following the ruling. “They might dislike the message and maybe the messenger, but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is our natural rights and that’s illuminated in the U.S. Constitution.”

Schmidt is a district resident and grandparent to two D-49 students. Kohls is an Ohio resident and a senior director for the national nonprofit organization Moms for America. Later in 2023, Schmidt would get elected to the D-49 Board of Education.

The two security specialists at the February meeting, David Glenn and Robert Konz, also were named as defendants in the suit. Both were found not to have deprived the plaintiffs of their constitutional rights. Magistrate Judge Dominguez Braswell dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim that the district’s practice violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.

The plaintiffs alleged that they were singled out for the message on their signs, which favored one faction of the board and opposed the other, including Graham. The defendants argued that they removed the two on the basis of a newly adopted practice at board meetings after recent meetings had become unruly and featured various signage. The new practice permitted signs during meetings, provided that no written words were on them.

Defendants referred to two examples of asking attendees to put down their signs at board meetings before the February meeting. Since one of the signs called for Liu’s resignation and the other called for all board members to resign, they maintained that they were being “consistent” with the practice.

“D-49 places learning as our highest value and our ongoing mission,” said D-49 Superintendent Peter Hilts in a written statement. “We consider this outcome an opportunity to learn more about how we can better support the board president’s responsibility to maintain order while also preserving constituents’ rights to express themselves.”

The jury assigned $2,000 in nominal damages against D-49 and $2,500 against Graham.

With the case now decided, Schmidt told Hilts following the trial they will draft and pass a new policy reflecting the outcome.

“I’m ready for it as soon as possible,” she said. “And I’m sure he probably is, too, because we want to avoid this in the future.”