The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to record government officials performing their duties. But last year, a mom in Indiana was punished by her local school district for doing just that — recording a private meeting with her daughter’s middle school principal and posting portions of it online.
The Whitley County School District retaliated against Nicole Graves, banning her from the school and prohibiting her from contacting school staff without prior permission. The district claims that Nicole violated its policy prohibiting audio recordings of meetings without the permission of an administrator.
But that policy violates Nicole’s First Amendment rights, and it also interferes with her right to direct the care and education of her children. This week, Nicole and the Goldwater Institute sued the district in federal court to have its recording policy revoked.
Nicole says ending the district’s policy is imperative, otherwise “it’s going to happen again.”
Nearly two decades ago, Arizona voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 207, the Private Property Rights Protection Act. The Goldwater Institute-drafted law protects property owners when governments take actions that reduce the value of their land. The recent resolution of a case in the city of Holbrook, Arizona, shows just how critical that law remains.
In 2022, Anil Patel found a buyer for his Howard Johnson motel in Holbrook who wanted to convert it to short-term housing for low-income individuals. But as the sale neared closing, the Holbrook City Council passed a targeted zoning change, essentially allowing them to deny any use they didn’t want.
The council ended up derailing the sale and slashing the value of Anil’s property. But the Goldwater Institute fought back, and in a victory for private property rights secured compensation for Anil.
When the Washington Post took aim Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts earlier this month, the Goldwater Institute pushed back, correcting the outlet’s mistakes. State data show the struggling district the Post profiled is overwhelmingly losing students to different public schools not to private schools that accept state scholarships.
National Review took notice. In her weekly media bias column, NR’s Brittany Bernstein writes that “as the Goldwater Institute first pointed out, the Post’s decision to link the school closures to the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program is disingenuous.”
Bernstein also notes that the Post’s anti-ESA story “is just one in a series of anti-school choice articles the outlet has published in recent years as the issue has surged to the forefront of public attention.”
