Supporters and opponents of Amendment 2 made their opinions known at the Fancy Farm Picnic, Aug. 3, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)
More than two months after Kentucky voters rejected allowing nonpublic schools to receive public funds, a prominent “school choice” advocate from Texas is suing a Kentucky school district over an election-related matter.
Corey DeAngelis filed suit against Pulaski County Schools for blocking him from its Facebook page after he raised questions last August about the district’s posts regarding Amendment 2.
DeAngelis, who is on the board of constitutional law firm Liberty Justice Center, filed a complaint Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Kentucky that says he is seeking to affirm his First Amendment rights.
Pulaski County Schools Superintendent Patrick Richardson said he was unaware of the lawsuit when emailed for comment Thursday.
“Oddly enough, I wonder why a person from Texas would be so interested in Kentucky, especially Pulaski County?” Richardson said. “I really don’t have a comment on something I have not officially been made aware of yet. Bless his heart.”
The lawsuit argues DeAngelis “was censored and otherwise restricted in his online speech when he criticized” the school district’s posts opposing the amendment that would have opened a path to school vouchers and charter schools in Kentucky.
DeAngelis has been labeled the “school choice evangelist’ and is a regular on Fox News, according to his LinkedIn page.
He told the Kentucky Lantern in an interview Thursday that he filed the lawsuit to uphold the First Amendment rights of all Americans and remedy the issue for Kentucky families that may follow the school district’s page and were not able to voice their opinion while all comments were limited on the online posts.
“I’m standing up primarily for Kentucky residents who are impacted by their actions,” he said.
Last November, 65% of Kentucky voters rejected the constitutional amendment which was defeated in every county.
A few months before that, Pulaski County Schools, a district seated around Somerset with more than 7,500 students, shared messages opposing the amendment on its websites and Facebook pages.
Prominent Kentucky Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, suggested the posts “blatantly” broke state law. Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman ultimately issued an advisory that warned school districts to not use tax dollars to advocate for or against a constitutional amendment.
Massie’s criticism of the school district on X was shared in a quote tweet from DeAngelis. To date, that post from DeAngelis has received about 766,500 views.
According to court records, DeAngelis’ case has been referred to U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in 2018.
The lawsuit says DeAngelis commented on the school district’s Facebook page after sharing the post on X and he argued “the District had violated Kentucky law by using public resources to advocate against Amendment 2.” After Coleman’s advisory, the Liberty Justice Center sent the school district a letter “detailing how the District’s advocacy actions were illegal and demanding removal of the posts.”
The district removed the posts and closed comments on a subsequent post about removing the statements. A few days later, DeAngelis noticed he had been blocked from commenting or viewing the school district’s Facebook page. He posted about that on X on Aug. 16, and that tweet has more than 82,100 views.
The lawsuit says he remained blocked until Aug. 21. Attorneys for DeAngelis then sent another letter to Pulaski County Schools asking the district to “agree to 1) refrain from interfering with Mr. DeAngelis’s criticism of the District on social media, 2) reopen public comment, and 3) cease any further efforts to suppress free expression.”
“Mr. DeAngelis’s undersigned counsel then exchanged emails with the District’s counsel, asking for a written commitment to not block Mr. DeAngelis or otherwise engage in viewpoint-based restrictions on social media to avoid litigation over this matter,” the lawsuit says. “Neither Mr. DeAngelis nor his counsel ever received that commitment.”
DeAngelis is asking the court grant a permanent injunction against the school district to “refrain from blocking Mr. DeAngelis or other members of the public from interacting with the District’s official Facebook page based on viewpoint.” He is also asking the court to declare the school district “violated Mr. DeAngelis’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech when it blocked him from making comments on its Facebook page.”
Representing DeAngelis are Northern Kentucky attorney Steven Megerle and Dean McGee of the Liberty Justice Center.
McGee told the Lantern that the center filed the lawsuit now because it was “just not something we could ultimately let go.” He said that while he would “leave open” the possibility of addressing other issues in the lawsuit, such as the possibility of tax dollars used to advocate against the amendment, the “lawsuit is currently just focused on First Amendment rights.”
“We certainly think there are potential legal theories for private citizens in Kentucky in districts whose taxpayer resources were used to advocate this political point,” McGee said. “There are potential avenues for them to assert those rights.”
The Liberty Justice Center represents all of its clients for free.
It’s not the first time a Kentucky official has faced legal troubles for blocking accounts online. Former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin faced a federal lawsuit over blocking users from his official Twitter and Facebook accounts. Ultimately, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky settled the case with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear after he assumed office in 2020. The Kentucky governor’s office adopted a new social media policy as part of the agreement.