Claim That State Employee Was Unconstitutionally Demoted “Because She Did Not Share” Education Agency’s Views on Race Can Go Forward

From Spengler v. Coop. Educ. Serv. Agency 7, decided yesterday by Seventh Circuit Judge Michael Scudder, joined by Chief Judge Michael Brennan and Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi:

In 2018, Becky Spengler started working as a special education administrator in Wisconsin. A couple years into the role, her supervisors pushed her and the rest of her team to adopt an “equity mindset,” which required everyone to interrogate their implicit racial biases and privileges. Spengler understood the demand differently. She thought she had to believe that all white people—and only white people—are naturally racist. Spengler refused to adopt the equity mindset, and as a result, her employer demoted her to a different job….

Spengler … alleges that her employer violated the First Amendment by retaliating against her for what she believes and what she declines to believe. The district court never considered this claim, determining that Spengler insufficiently pleaded it…. [W]e disagree and remand for further proceedings….

In 2018, [Wisconsin state] Cooperative Educational Service Agency 7 hired Spengler as an Integration Director…. CESA 7 hired Spengler to effectuate a contract with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction [DPI] …. Spengler trained and supported the special-education directors for the 38 school districts within CESA 7. She also worked as a coach who provided professional learning to help teachers and staff implement training and particular workplace practices….

Spengler claims that after a couple years, DPI began focusing on race by requiring coaches to adopt an “equity mindset.” According to DPI’s Coaching Competency Practice Profile, a coach with an equity mindset “cultivates … the willingness and ability to see and speak to how their power and privilege are at work to systematically advantage some while simultaneously disadvantag[ing] others,” helps others understand “how their thoughts and actions may negatively impact marginalized … communities,” and “surfaces the impact of white supremacy and the history of whiteness on systems” while working “to disrupt and dismantle its effects.”

Spengler thought the push for coaches to have an equity mindset was itself racist and discriminatory against white people. As she saw it, DPI’s worldview anchored itself in a belief that “the natural state of White people—unlike people of color—is to be racists.” When she voiced her disagreement with this perspective, tension emerged among Spengler and her co-workers.

Over time, DPI officials requested that CESA 7 replace Spengler as Integration Director for the 2022-2023 contract year…. DPI’s pressure appears to have worked. In May 2022, Dickert met with DPI representatives and realized that CESA 7 would lose funding if Spengler continued as Integration Director. Colleen Timm, CESA 7’s Learning Services Director, informed Spengler that DPI viewed “points in the [new] [c]ontract” as non-negotiable and that she could keep her position as the Integration Director only if she “could commit to the role without pushback or questioning.” Spengler claims that one of those points required CESA 7 staff to have “a demonstrated commitment to examining their personal biases in the areas of race and ability, and to dismantling racist and ableist educational systems.”

Spengler declined to make that commitment. She promised in correspondence with Dickert and Timm “to effectively carry out DPI’s direction with regard to … [her] work within the Districts.” But she was unwilling to “agree to keep silent regarding DPI’s racist philosophy, policies, and plan of action.” Indeed, she maintained that she had the “right to express” her “personal views and opinions regarding matters of race” and to “express those views in the same respectful manner as any other employee of DPI and/or CESA 7 might express their views.” She also “retain[ed] [her] right to continue to oppose racial discrimination in the workplace.”

In June 2022, CESA 7 declined to re-up Spengler as the Integration Director and instead employed her in a different position that paid much less….

[Spengler] does not appeal the district court’s entry of summary judgment for CESA 7 on her claim that it retaliated against her because of what she said and what she declined to say. But she does appeal the district court’s failure to address her claim that CESA 7 retaliated against her because of what she believes and what she declines to believe….

The district court should have considered Spengler’s claim that CESA 7 retaliated against her because of her beliefs. As a matter of law, we have no doubt that her claim is cognizable. The First Amendment “protects a public employee from discharge … based on what he believes.” That protection guards against more than just retaliation for “political affiliation.” It also extends to any attempt to force public employees to “conform their beliefs … to some state-selected orthodoxy.” “[U]nless the government can demonstrate an overriding interest of vital importance requiring that a person’s private beliefs conform to those of the hiring authority, his beliefs cannot be the sole basis for depriving him of continued public employment.”

We are also confident that Spengler’s operative complaint provided CESA 7 with “fair notice” that she was bringing this claim. Most directly, she alleges that “[d]espite her positive job performance and track record,” CESA 7 “repeatedly informed [her] that she could not properly perform the Director of Integrated Services job unless she believed and otherwise agreed with and embraced DPI’s racist philosophy, programs, and actions,” even saying this demand “violated [her] constitutional rights.”

And more broadly, as the district court recognized, the overarching thrust of Spengler’s complaint is that she lost her job as CESA 7’s Integration Director “because she did not share DPI’s views” on race. She emphasizes that CESA 7 never “complain[ed] about the work she performed” or “otherwise legitimately assert[ed] that [she] had failed to provide all agreed-upon ‘deliverables.'” Yet she alleges that CESA 7 warned her that “if she remained in the Director of Integrated Services role, she would need to fully embrace DPI’s racist philosophy, actions and agenda, and that she could no longer question or voice disagreement with DPI’s racist assumptions, philosophy, actions and agenda.”

Put even more directly, the complaint states that “[b]ecause [Spengler] declined to accept DPI’s beliefs and to ‘demonstrate’ that she embraced and agreed with DPI’s racist philosophy, beliefs, actions, and agenda, [CESA 7] removed her from her role as Director of Integrated Services,” in violation of her “constitutional rights.” CESA 7 had fair notice of Spengler’s claim that it retaliated against her because of her beliefs. Rule 8(a) [the federal pleading requirement] required no more.

The court concluded, though, that plaintiff had not adequately pled her separate claims that she was illegally fired based on her race.