Supreme Court rules unanimously against Houston Community College board member who claimed a First Amendment violation; Read the full SCOTUS opinion

HOUSTON – The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously ruled against David Wilson, a member of Houston Community College’s board.

Wilson had sued the board in for a First Amendment violation after the board publicly censured him.

The Supreme Court rejected Wilson’s claim that the censure was unconstitutional retaliation for his speech.

Wilson was elected to the board in 2013, according to the opinion. His tenure was “a stormy one” and he often and strongly disagreed with many of his colleagues about the direction of HCC and its best interests. He was reprimanded in 2016 by the board. In the following months, Wilson filed lawsuits alleging the board had violated its bylaws by allowing a trustee to vote via videoconference and excluded him from a meeting to discuss the lawsuit. The second suit contended that the board and HCC had “prohibited him from performing his core function as a trustee.” All told the lawsuits cost HCC more than $270,000 in legal fees, according to the Supreme Court opinion delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Here are some of the main findings in the opinion:

• “Mr. Wilson was an elected official. In this country, we expect elected representatives to shoulder a degree of criticism about their public service from their constituents and their peers -- and to continue exercising their free speech rights when the criticism comes. As this Court has put it, “[w]hatever differences may exist about interpretations of the First Amendment, there is practically universal agreement” that it was adopted in part to ‘protect the free discussion of governmental affairs. When individuals ‘consent to be a candidate for a public office conferred by the election of the people,’ they necessarily ‘pu[t] [their] character in issue, so far as it may respect [their] fitness and qualifications for the office.’”
• “... The only adverse action at issue before us is itself a form of speech from Mr. Wilson’s colleagues that concerns the conduct of public office. The First Amendment surely promises an elected representative like Mr. Wilson the right to speak freely on questions of government policy. But just as surely, it cannot be used as a weapon to silence other representatives seeking to do the same.”
• “Everyone involved was an equal member of the same deliberative body. As it comes to us, too, the censure did not prevent Mr. Wilson from doing his job, it did not deny him any privilege of office, and Mr. Wilson does not allege it was defamatory. At least in these circumstances, we do not see how the board’s censure could have materially deterred an elected official like Mr. Wilson from exercising his own right to speak.”

As of this writing, Wilson remains on HCC Board, according to information provided on the college’s website.

For more, read the full opinion here.

KPRC 2 has reached out to Houston Community College and Wilson for comment on the ruling, but has not yet heard back as of this writing. KPRC 2 will update with more information if provided.