Collins v. San Francisco Unified School District

Background

Allison Collins was an elected Commissioner on the San Francisco School Board. A March 25, 2021, resolution passed by a 5-2 vote removed her from the titular role of vice president and from all committees. The resolution called for her resignation and referred primarily to statements about the Asian American community that Collins had made in tweets from 2016.

Collins asserted three claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing claims against state actors for certain constitutional violations. She alleged retaliation for protected speech under the First Amendment and violations of Fourteenth Amendment rights involving liberty and property. She also asserted state-law claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, violation of property interests, and retaliation. The defendants were the San Francisco Unified School District and board commissioners Lam, Moliga, Alexander, Boggess, and Sanchez.

Claims Against the School District

The court held that California school districts are considered state agencies protected by the Eleventh Amendment, which generally limits federal lawsuits against states and their instrumentalities. It found that San Francisco Unified School District was entitled to that protection. The court also noted that Collins did not appear to contest the argument in her opposition.

The court granted the motion to dismiss all claims against the school district without leave to amend and dismissed the school district as a defendant.

Claims Against the Individual Commissioners

Because it was unclear whether Collins sued the commissioners in their official or individual capacities, the court considered both possibilities.

For official-capacity claims, Collins relied on an exception that can allow lawsuits for prospective injunctive or declaratory relief against state officials for ongoing violations of federal law. The court found that Collins had not identified an ongoing violation or a practice, policy, or procedure causing one. Her allegation that the resolution continued to abridge her freedom of speech was an unsupported legal conclusion, in the court’s view. The court therefore granted the motion to dismiss the official-capacity claims with leave to amend.

For individual-capacity claims, the commissioners asserted qualified immunity. Qualified immunity generally protects government officials from personal liability unless their conduct violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time. The court concluded that Collins had not alleged conduct violating a clearly established constitutional right.

On the First Amendment claim, Collins alleged that the commissioners retaliated against her for statements she made as a private citizen. The court relied on Ninth Circuit precedent involving removal of a school-board vice president by fellow board members. That precedent treated such removal as a political action that did not amount to unconstitutional retaliation, considering the limited nature of the action, the role of political disagreement, and the board members’ interest in speaking and voting according to their views. The court found that the precedent applied, or at least made the constitutional right insufficiently clear to defeat qualified immunity.

On the due-process claims, the court found that Collins had not alleged a clearly established liberty interest based on reputational harm. She remained an elected commissioner and had not been removed from the board, terminated from employment, or excluded from practicing a profession. The court also found that the employment cases on which Collins relied did not establish a property right in her internal leadership role or committee assignments. The court held that the constitutional claims against the commissioners in their individual capacities were barred by qualified immunity and granted the motion to dismiss those claims with leave to amend.

State-Law Claims

After dismissing all federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, meaning jurisdiction over related state-law claims. It dismissed the remaining state-law claims without prejudice. Collins could reassert those claims, but only if she stated a valid federal claim, and she could not add new state-law claims. The court deferred ruling on the defendants’ anti-strategic-lawsuit-against-public-participation motion until after any amended complaint adequately stated a federal claim.

Preliminary Injunction

Collins sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction requiring restoration of her vice-president role and committee positions. Because that request sought mandatory relief changing the existing situation, the court applied a heightened standard requiring the law and facts to clearly favor her position.

The court found that Collins had not met that standard. It concluded that her First Amendment claim, as pleaded, faced the Eleventh Amendment and qualified-immunity barriers and was unlikely to succeed in light of the Ninth Circuit precedent discussed above. The court therefore denied the temporary restraining order and preliminary-injunction requests without considering the remaining injunction factors.

Disposition

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. granted the motion to dismiss. Claims against the school district were dismissed without leave to amend, and the school district was dismissed as a defendant. Claims against the individual defendants were dismissed with leave to amend. The state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice. The court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction and required any amended complaint to be filed within 21 days, without adding new causes of action or defendants.