JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Former Douglas Anderson School of the Arts art teacher Hope McMath has filed a 30-page lawsuit against the Duval County School Board and three individual board members, alleging viewpoint discrimination and First Amendment retaliation.<\/p>\n
McMath was removed from her classroom last September after making a online post stating \u201ckarma is a b\u201d<\/a> following the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Last week, Action News Jax told you that an administrative judge recommended that all state charges against McMath be dropped<\/a>, including efforts to suspend or revoke her teaching license.<\/p>\n The 30-page lawsuit names 10 defendants in total. Among those named individually are Duval County School Board members April Carney, Melody Bolduc, and Charlotte Joyce.<\/p>\n Attorney John Phillips is representing McMath in the legal action. McMath and Phillips allege that state officials opened an investigation into her social media activity before any public complaint was filed. Furthermore, the state\u2019s investigation concluded that McMath\u2019s Facebook post caused no harm to students.<\/p>\n Phillips addressed the findings of the investigation and the decision to pursue legal action. <\/p>\n \u201cThe record lacks any persuasive explanation for why the school district took that action. In fact, Principal Feagins would like to have Ms. McMath back,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n The lawsuit also cites an incident where school board members faced public criticism for wearing shirts referencing Turning Point<\/a> following Kirk\u2019s death. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Despite the administrative judge\u2019s recommendation to dismiss all state charges, McMath remains outside the classroom while seeking to return to teaching.<\/p>\n McMath spoke about her experience during the news conference announcing the legal filing. <\/p>\n \u201cIf their goal was to keep me out of the classroom, whether they were right or wrong, they were successful, up until now,\u201d McMath said.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n McMath emphasized the broader implications of the district\u2019s actions against her. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen wrong things happen and when people stand up and push back, that right can win and should and if we can\u2019t along the way show very specific examples of that, we are truly lost,\u201d McMath said.<\/p>\n We reached out to Carney, Bolduc, Joyce, and the Florida Department of Education about the lawsuit and are waiting to hear back.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Former Douglas Anderson School of the Arts art teacher Hope McMath has filed a 30-page…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[18586,6275,44842,92106,18583,161975,116431,44844,25176,1292,161978,919,44845,969,116,118,117,44851,634,44848,161979,124586,161977,115,12568,120104,161976],"class_list":["post-407762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-april_carney","tag-attorney","tag-charlie_kirk","tag-charlotte_joyce","tag-deja_mayfield","tag-deja_mcmath","tag-department_of_education","tag-douglas_anderson","tag-duval_county_school_board","tag-facebook","tag-fagans","tag-hope","tag-hope_mcmath","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-john_phillips","tag-local","tag-mcmath","tag-melanie_boldue","tag-melody_bolduc","tag-melody_bull_duke","tag-news","tag-phillips","tag-principal","tag-yoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}