## Facts

- New York City school officials promulgated Regulation D-130 requiring school personnel, while on duty or in contact with students, to maintain “complete neutrality” regarding political candidates.
- The Regulation barred distributing, posting, or displaying candidate-supporting materials in school buildings and prohibited placing campaign materials in staff mailboxes, with narrow exceptions.
- The Board’s general counsel advised the teachers’ union that the Regulation prohibited teachers from wearing campaign buttons in school buildings and from placing or posting candidate-related materials on union bulletin boards and in staff mailboxes.
- The union president and three public-school teachers sought to wear campaign buttons at school and to disseminate candidate-related materials through union bulletin boards and staff mailboxes.
- Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law, claiming the Regulation as enforced violated the First Amendment and the New York Constitution.
- Plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of the challenged applications of the Regulation.

## Issues

1. Whether prohibiting teachers from wearing political campaign buttons while on duty or in contact with students violates the First Amendment (and parallel state constitutional protections).
2. Whether prohibiting candidate-related materials on union bulletin boards and in staff mailboxes in staff-only areas violates the First Amendment (and parallel state constitutional protections).
3. Whether plaintiffs met the requirements for preliminary injunctive relief, including irreparable harm and likelihood of success on the merits (or serious questions and a hardship balance favoring relief).

## Decision

- The court denied preliminary injunctive relief as to the restriction on wearing political campaign buttons while on duty or in contact with students.
- The court granted preliminary injunctive relief barring enforcement of the Regulation to the extent it prohibited posting candidate-related materials on union bulletin boards and placing such materials in staff mailboxes.
- The court found the Board’s student-facing neutrality and endorsement concerns sufficient, at the preliminary stage, to justify restricting visible campaign buttons in the presence of students.
- The court found plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits as to staff-only bulletin boards and mailboxes because the blanket restrictions were broader than justified and insufficiently supported by evidence of any comparable school-endorsement risk.
- The court treated the loss or chilling of protected political speech as irreparable harm supporting injunctive relief where plaintiffs showed likely success.

## Legal Principles

- A public employer may regulate employee speech, including speech on matters of public concern, when the government’s interests as an employer in efficient and appropriate operations outweigh the employee’s speech interests (Pickering-type balancing).
- In public-school settings, the government has heightened interests in avoiding partisan indoctrination and perceived endorsement where student audiences may attribute a teacher’s expression to the school.
- Content-based restrictions aimed at maintaining political neutrality may be permissible where they are not viewpoint-based and are justified by the school’s educational mission and the student-facing context.
- For internal school property used for communication (such as staff mailboxes and union bulletin boards), restrictions in nonpublic or limited public forums must be reasonable in light of the forum’s purpose and must be viewpoint-neutral.
- A broad ban on core political speech among adults in staff-only channels is vulnerable where the government offers insufficient evidence that the restriction reasonably advances neutrality or prevents attribution of endorsement.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the school system to restrict teachers from wearing campaign buttons when on duty or in contact with students, but it preliminarily enjoined enforcement of the same political-neutrality policy in staff-only communication spaces, holding that the Board’s asserted neutrality rationale did not justify a blanket ban on campaign materials in union bulletin boards and staff mailboxes.


Weingarten v. Bd. of Educ. of the City Sch. Dist. of the City of N.Y., 591 F. Supp. 2d 511 (S.D.N.Y. 2008)