Chalkbeat: Can a school board member block a parent who criticizes them on Facebook?

Does it matter if the parent posts one negative comment or 100? Does it matter if the school board member just sticks to official business or if they mix posts about hiring a superintendent with posts about their kids’ birthdays?

In recent years, a number of courts have found that when public officials talk about public business on personal social media accounts, those accounts become public forums — and blocking someone from a public forum because you don’t like their speech violates the First Amendment. The most prominent case involved former President Donald Trump, who was barred from blocking critics from his @realDonaldTrump account on X, then known as Twitter.

But a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision lays out a new standard. The most important question, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a unanimous opinion released Friday, is not whether a public official is discussing public business. It’s whether the public official is posting on social media in their official capacity. The key question is: Are they authorized to speak on behalf of the government and are they exercising that authority in their posts?

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