O'Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier

In 2014, petitioners Michell O'Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane successfully ran for election to the Board of Trustees of the Poway Unified School District (PUSD), located in Poway, California. In addition to personal accounts, petitioners also created public accounts on Facebook and Twitter to promote their campaigns. After they were elected, petitioners continued to use these accounts to post content related to PUSD business and activities of the Board. This included information about achievements of students and faculty, reminders about Board meetings, and matters of public safety and security at PUSD.[2]

Respondents Christopher and Kimberly Garnier are parents with children attending PUSD schools. For years, the Garniers had been active members of the PUSD community and had often been critical of the Board. They voiced their concerns at public meetings of the Board of Trustees, in emails, and in person at meetings with individual trustees. As they became unsatisfied with the results of these communications, the Garniers began – in 2015 – to comment on Trustees' social media posts. Respondents' comments never included profanity or threatening language, and were nearly always related to PUSD matters. However, the length and repetitive nature of the comments became frustrating to O'Connor-Ratcliff and Zane. For example, Christopher Garnier had once left near-identical comments on 42 separate posts on O'Connor-Ratcliff's Facebook page. He had also left 226 identical replies over the span of 10 minutes to each tweet O'Connor-Ratcliff had ever posted on her public Twitter account.

At first, petitioners began to hide or delete individual comments from their Facebook pages. As this grew onerous, O'Connor-Ratcliff and Zane blocked the Garniers from their social media accounts. Sometime after, petitioners also implemented "word filers" on their Facebook accounts, effectively precluding members of the public from leaving verbal reactions, but not from liking the post or otherwise reacting in a nonverbal way. Since they were blocked, the Garniers were unable to interact with the posts in nonverbal ways.

After they were blocked, the Garniers sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking injunctive and declaratory relief, alleging a violation of the First Amendment. The United States District Court for the Southern District of California ruled in favor of the Garniers, granting declaratory and injunctive relief. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

O'Connor-Ratcliff and Zane petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case on October 4, 2022. On April 24, 2023, the Court granted certiorari.

• Text of O'Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, ___ U.S. ___ (2024) is available from: Justia  Oyez (oral argument audio)  [ Supreme Court (slip opinion)]  [ Supreme Court (preliminary print)]