Pastor booted from Manatee School Board hearing prevails on appeal

A federal appeals court has reinstated a First Amendment lawsuit filed by a pastor and community activist against then-Manatee County school Superintendent Cynthia Saunders after he was kicked out of a board meeting in 2019.

A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Friday upheld dismissals of Arthur Huggins’ complaints about the cop and a school board official who actively tossed him from the meeting, as well as the City of Bradenton.

But the court concluded that Saunders, now retired, was not entitled to qualified immunity from the lawsuit.

“She has not shown that directing the removal of a community member from a Board meeting falls within the scope of her discretionary authority,” Judge Robin Rosenbaum wrote for judges Elizabeth Branch and Embry Kidd.

The ruling means Huggins can go back to trial court to press his complaint against Saunders. The court also said he could press claims under state law.

The episode transpired amid public ferment over the board’s plans to take control of Lincoln Memorial Academy, a Black-owned charter school. Huggins had played a prominent role in protests against the school system.

According to court records, Huggins attended a meeting during which Lincoln was on the agenda. As the meeting stretched to four hours, he left his seat to stand against the back wall, hoping to relieve back pain from sitting so long.

Paul Damico, the school district’s chief of security, told Huggins to sit down or leave. As Huggins tried to explain, Damico summoned a city police officer, who made Huggins move to a lobby. He was barred from re-entering the meeting chamber.

‘Discretionary functions’

“Officials performing discretionary functions are still liable for violations of clearly established rights,” the court explained.

However, “Huggins plausibly alleges that Saunders prevented him from speaking because of his viewpoint. The right to be free from viewpoint-based discrimination is a foundational — and long clearly established — constitutional right.”

Huggins had vocally criticized Saunders, the court noted, including in a recent TV news interview. It is reasonable, the panel continued, to deduce she had been prejudiced against him.

“After all, Saunders knew the opinion Huggins wished to convey, ordered his removal, and — we can reasonably infer — did so because of Huggins’s viewpoint.”

The event was serious enough to deter other community members from speaking out the court said.

“For starters, being ordered out of a meeting room by a chief of security and a police officer can be, as Huggins alleges, humiliating and damaging to a person’s personal reputation. That’s particularly true here because members of the community widely attended the Board meetings in 2019. And since there is no justification for harassing people for exercising their constitutional rights, the adverse effect need not be great to support a violation,” the court said.

“Plus, Huggins’s expulsion showed Huggins that he would face a hard choice if he tried to express his views at a future meeting. He could endure potentially several hours of physical pain from his injuries while sitting through the lengthy proceedings before public comment. Or he would risk a credible threat of arrest if he again sought to relieve his pain by standing in the back of the hearing room or in the lobby until his time to speak came.”

The board ultimately revoked Lincoln’s charter, citing “systematic dysfuntion.”

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.