Last month, the Santa Fe School Board was advised by its lawyer to cut off a citizen's microphone during public comment. Why? Because the citizen, Cate Moses, began to allege that the school district's superintendent cooked the numbers on a student-achievement report. True or not, this is a matter of extraordinary public concern. But the Board has a rule that citizen speakers must not address "personnel issues," so Ms. Moses was prevented from finishing her statement. (
Watch the video, around 24 minutes in.)
If this sounds odd and unconstitutional to you, well, it does to us too. FOG sent
this letter to the School Board members on July 29, explaining why the "personnel issues" rule is risky for the Board and detrimental to both the Board and the public. We included a copy of
this article, posted by the
First Amendment Center.