By Gretchen Garrity
There are many ways in which publicly-funded entities limit and suppress the right of the public to speak freely.
Art. I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of the State of Missouri states: “That no law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech, no matter by what means communicated: that every person shall be free to say, write or publish, or otherwise communicate whatever he will on any subject, being responsible for all abuses of that liberty…”
Right behind that is “Sec. 9, Rights of peaceable assembly and petition. – That the people have the right peaceably to assemble for their common good, and to apply to those invested with the powers of government for redress of grievances by petition or remonstrance.”
A 2015 article in the Springfield News-leader discusses the latitude the state has apparently given to public governing boards when it comes to free speech.
According to the article, “Former Springfield City Attorney Howard Wright, who has written about the subject on his website [website is no longer active], said courts have found that citizens must be given a "meaningful opportunity to comment" when a public hearing is required. But as long as that happens, "I think council has a lot of discretion to adopt rules and procedures."
The article then shares some of the rules and regulations local governing bodies have applied to public speech at their meetings.
If you have attended a public meeting lately, you may have run into some of the ways boards limit and suppress speech. It is usually couched in terms of timeliness, application to the current agenda, distractions and so forth, but what actually occurs is an undue limit on the rights of citizens to communicate to and with their elected and/or appointed boards in a public setting.
The rules and guidelines seem geared toward troublemakers, but give precious little evidence that
citizens in general are not already acting in an orderly and polite
manner. Public forums can get boisterous, passionate, even
contentious at times, but citizens usually do a wonderful job of
policing themselves, and should not be made to suffer for a board of
thin-skinned individuals who want to control every action of the
audience and can brook no distraction of any kind.
Time limits on public speech—giving citizens as little as three minutes to speak on a topic—is one way in which free speech is suppressed. That is not a “meaningful opportunity to comment.” Three minutes to address a grievance or inquire of the board is often not enough time to fully express an issue. Also, boards tend not to respond to the issues addressed. They sit mute before the public, presumably hoping the person and therefore the issue will disappear.
This is from the Ozark School District Public Comment policies:
“The board encourages residents to utilize the process for placing items on the agenda but will also specifically designate time for district residents to provide public comments at regular meetings of the board. The following rules will apply to the public comment portion of the meeting:
The board will establish a time limit for the public comment period.
No individual will be permitted to speak more than once during this period.
The board will establish a uniform time limit for each speaker.
Discussion will be limited to items from the posted agenda.
All speakers must provide his or her name and address prior to speaking.
If there is insufficient time for everyone to speak, the board will encourage participants to submit their questions in writing or utilize the process for putting an item on the agenda.”
If citizens cannot go to their elected officials without first going through what is undoubtedly a filter, then who is truly representing the people?
That very few individuals attend most public meetings may have something to do with the extra burdens placed upon citizens. A citizen should not feel as if their speech is of such low concern as to merit a three-minute time limit for hearing an issue, or that the board “may require” a citizen to meet with intermediaries (district staff) before addressing the board. (Note: the OSD time-limit policy is five minutes though they had been limiting individuals to three minutes as stated in the video below.)
The school board at the Ozark School District has questionable requirements, even going to so far as to suppress the speech of their own members through requiring points of order in order to address citizens and calling for the question before sufficient time to discuss the issue has occurred. Citizens have a right to hear the speech of others, as well as to speak.
At an October 2023 board meeting discussion regarding addressing citizens in a public meeting, it was decided that individual board members must first address the board president for permission to speak with a citizen. If you watch the whole discussion, it becomes clear that the board intends to keep tight control of not only citizen participation, but of the board itself. Watch the discussion (prompted at 12 minutes):
....
If you have attended an Ozark school board meeting, it becomes clear that the tight control is not because there are routinely violent, or otherwise inappropriate outbursts (although the News-Leader reported boardmembers accusing the public of such things.) If you watch the online board meetings, it is clear the board as a whole is not comfortable with any type of disagreement, even with other board members.
Attorneys, in particular those of the Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) have been involved. At about 34 minutes in, Patty Quessenberry, who is running for re-election to the school board again after serving for 27 years and who is currently the president-elect of the MSBA, even mentions that the board has conferred with an attorney about the new policy they are discussing.
At 39 minutes in
Quessenberry actually asks how to proceed if one of the dreaded
outbursts happens but she hasn’t noticed
it happened. Board Member Christina Tonsing even mentions she has not
heard a lot of what the other board members claim are outbursts.
The discussion then goes on to what certain audience members said or
didn’t say, whether it was rude, and whether the board members had
actually heard what they thought they heard.
Board Member Guy Callaway suggests that some of the citizen comments were misconstrued by not only board members, but others in the room. Apparently, board members are conferring with others present, many of whom are school employees.
This is some nasty uprising from citizens, eh?
In November's meeting, a citizen questioned the board about an incident that occurred in October, when a citizen was removed from the meeting in violation of the board's new policy. See his comments here (video prompted). You will see the board attempts to shut him down:
The ever present timer rings while he is still speaking. He was the only public speaker for the meeting, which is very common. No one responded to the citizen's comments. The board moves right on to the next agenda item. It is as if he didn't exist.
It isn't until Board Member Christina Tonsing brings up the issue some time later that it is addressed. If she had not brought it up through the Community Engagement Plan on the Agenda, it would not have been referred to at all.
At approximately 1:04:00 in the video, Board Member Tonsing requests the Community Engagement Plan be pulled from the Consent Agenda, so it can be discussed. The board seems reluctant but Tonsing is allowed to share her views on the plan and how it came about, and she makes a connection between that and the issue of public comments in her quest to have the item pulled from the agenda.
Also, please note that though the transcript repeatedly states it is Board Member Amber Bryant speaking, it is actually Tonsing. The item was pulled from the agenda and Tonsing asks the board for their responses. Crickets, except for Guy Callaway who felt that the board had done their duty to solicit community engagement, of which there was apparently very little. The motion is quickly approved to accept the consent agenda.
At the December 2023 board meeting, a very important subject comes up, that of due process for teachers. Board Member Tonsing begins to make a case for modifying the MSBA's proposed changes in district policy, as it may violate the "federal process" for teachers going through a suspension or termination process. (It is helpful to read the transcript of the video clip.) The proposed change reads:
"The fourth potential change/addition in policy - A member of the community has requested the following be placed into policy: Teacher and staff discipline - Any administrator, teacher, or staff of the district who is disciplined has the right to fair treatment. Therefore, any performance improvement plan presented to a district employee must be presented to the board at the next meeting by the superintendent. The superintendent will establish a timeline for the improvement required and update the board monthly on the employee's progress or lack thereof. Further, no Notice of Deficiency will be presented to a district employee until that employee has been invited to a board meeting to be heard and the board has approved the notice. At the hearing, the superintendent must present the failures of the Performance Improvement Plan in correcting the employee's shortcomings, including a summary of follow-up on the PIP."
In a clip from the board meeting (see below), which was recorded by the Ozark Schools Support Team and is not available at the district's YouTube Channel (interesting, eh?), you will see Board Member Bryant quickly shut down discussion by 'calling the question,' which is typically used when debate and discussion has been extensive. In this case, the board immediately voted to accept only the changes that had been proposed by the MSBA, completely suppressing any discussion.
The public was given no chance to hear a response or discussion of the issue, even though Ozark School District has an elevated turnover rate of teachers, with some controversial personnel decisions in the recent past. The board shut down Tonsing and simply voted the changes as recommended by the MSBA.
In conclusion, there are a myriad of ways that public boards suppress free speech. They do the voting public a great disservice by attempting to control narratives and stop discussion of matters that are of interest to citizens. Indeed, by limiting the free exchange of ideas, on both the part of board members, as well as citizens who have a right to speak, these publicly-elected boards undermine their communities and the well-being of their constituents.
It should stop.
