Two New Orleans library employees have agreed to dismiss their lawsuit against the city after officials agreed to drop the city’s questionable restrictions on workers’ private social media posts.
Plaintiffs Erin Wilson, who is now a teacher, and Andrew Okun agreed to drop their federal lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana after New Orleans Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano advanced a new policy that removes employee directives to not post negative or disparaging messages about city policies on their social media accounts. The lawsuit, which was dismissed on May 4, alleged that the city’s previous standards for its employees violated their First Amendment rights.
“This is a victory for plaintiffs’ freedom to express themselves on social media and free speech generally,” the plaintiffs attorney, Katie Schwarzmann of the First Amendment Law Clinic at Tulane University, told the Louisiana Record in an email.
The revised city policy was agreed to by all parties in the lawsuit, according to a joint motion for dismissal filed with the court.
“The parties have engaged in settlement negotiations and have arrived at mutually agreeable revisions of the policy, which has been adopted by the city,” the motion says.
The new policy says that no city employees, with the exception of elected officials, may use their personal social media accounts to make statements on behalf of the city.
“The city respects the rights of city employees to use social media as a medium of self-expression, but as online communications become more of a participatory action, the lines between the public and the private, personal and professional, can be blurred,” the policy says.
City employees continue to be barred from posting information that could harm the safety or security of the public or could infringe on the rights of others in the workplace, according to the revised policy. But the policy does acknowledge the rights of workers to speak out on issues that concern them.
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit constitutionally protected speech, such as ‘concerted activity’ under the National Labor Relations Act, ‘whistleblowing’ activity or an employee’s right to speak as a private citizen on a matter of public concern,” the policy states.