A federal judge has ruled in favor of a Vermont parent who was barred from school board meetings, concluding the ban violated the man’s right to free speech and due process, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
The case involved Marcel and Veronica Cyr, who in 2011 began criticizing the quality of their son’s education at Benson Village School, according to court papers. The couple put signs in their yard and decorated their car with slogans encouraging voters to defeat the school budget to express their disenchantment.
In September 2011 and March 2012, the Addison Rutland Supervisory Union issued Marcel Cyr a two-year no-trespass order that forbade him from coming onto any school property in the six-town supervisory union, court documents say.
The no-trespass orders did not say why Cyr was banned and the supervisory union refused Cyr a “meaningful” hearing to challenge the order, according to the ACLU’s complaint, filed in May 2012.
The supervisory union told Cyr it had received a tip that he posed a danger to the schools, court papers said, but it did not reveal the basis for that tip.
The decision to issue the no-trespass order was related to an opinion from a mental health professional warning that Cyr was a danger to school staff and teachers, according to the supervisory union’s response to the ACLU complaint. Burlington lawyer Pietro Lynn represented the schools.
The orders made no exception for attending school board meetings and cautioned Cyr that he could be arrested if he set foot on school property, according to a copy of the no-trespass order attached to court documents posted on the ACLU’s website.
When Cyr submitted a public records request to the supervisory union in 2012 for information on why he he had been banned, the supervisory union sued Cyr in Rutland Superior Court, asking the court to rule that it need not release any records.
ACLU of Vermont staff attorney Dan Barrett and Burlington attorney Ted Hobson represented Cyr and had the suit against him dismissed and records obtained.
The ACLU then filed suit against the supervisory union in federal court, arguing that the no-trespass order violated Cyr’s right to free speech, to receive information and to due process.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha issued a summary judgment Sept. 30, ruling that the no-trespass orders amounted to “a categorical ban on expressive speech” that singled out Cyr for censorship.
The court also held that the orders violated Cyr’s right to due process because they contained no explanation of why they were issued, no way to contest them and were issued in such a nonstandard way as to create a likelihood of misuse.
At the same time, the court denied Cyr’s claim that the First Amendment afforded him the right to attend the school board meetings, concluding “there is no First Amendment right of access to a school board meeting.”
Allen Gilbert, executive director of the ACLU of Vermont, said that part of the ruling is puzzling. Murtha ruled Cyr has a right of free expression to tell school officials his views and that right is violated if he can’t attend meetings, so that part of the decision appears to allow his attendance, Gilbert said. Also, Gilbert noted, Vermont’s Open Meeting Law protects the public’s right to attend public meetings.
“This is a great ruling for free speech and open government in Vermont,” Gilbert said. “What the ruling says is that schools and towns cannot skirt the Constitution by deciding that they don’t want to hear someone’s critical voice.”
In situations like these, Gilbert said, government entities like schools should come up with narrow solutions tailored to address specific issues and nothing more.
Barrett, the ACLU attorney who represented Cyr, said “government agencies across Vermont should read this ruling.” Voters like Cyr are the “heart of democracy,” he said, and their views are the core of free speech.
Next the court will determine what remedies and damages Cyr is entitled to. The Cyr family has since moved out of Benson, Gilbert said.
