Brooke Henderson, et al. v. School District of Springfield R-12, et al.

Government policy is the product of politics. Accordingly, government employees will often be called upon to implement or follow directives with which they disagree. It does not, however, follow that the government may seek to politically indoctrinate its employees or require that they subvert legal norms. A government’s demand that employees pledge loyalty to a political ideology would ordinarily violate the First Amendment. That defendant’s ideology extols unlawful racial discrimination, and that plaintiffs cannot lawfully implement it without exposing themselves to personal liability, underscores the First Amendment violation’s severity. And when the inevitable First Amendment lawsuits contesting such indoctrination reach the courts, judges cannot punish the plaintiffs for objecting.

Read the full amicus brief here.