Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS—2d Cir.: High school teachers, ordered to remove LGBTQ+ pride decorations, lose on appeal, (Sep 1, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

Under Connetquot Central School District’s new policy, only two kinds of flags could be hung in its classrooms or offices: “the American flag and the New York State flag.”

A federal district court properly dismissed the First and Fourteenth Amendment, and Title VII, claims of three Connetquot Central School District teachers who were ordered to remove LGBTQ+ pride flags and stickers that decorated the walls of their public high school classrooms, the Second Circuit held. Applying Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), the federal appeals court concluded that the teachers’ classroom wall decorations constituted speech pursuant to their official duties as government employees, and that the school district did not violate their First Amendment rights when it ordered the teachers to remove them. The teachers also failed plausibly to plead that the district selectively enforced its policies against them because of an impermissible motivation, or that they suffered any adverse employment actions (Dolce v. Connetquot Central School District, No. 25-1197 (2d Cir. Aug. 31, 2026)).

GSA club advisor. One of the plaintiffs is a math teacher at Connetquot Central High School. She is an “open member[] of the LGBTQ+ community” and the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) club advisor. For years, she hung two large pride flags on the walls of her math classroom: a progress pride flag, which was “at least twice the size of” the U.S. flag that hung next to it, and a traditional pride flag, which covered the white board.

Something changed. Then something changed. Some students, toward the beginning of the 2022-23 academic year, “reported feeling uncomfortable” having the progress pride flag displayed in their math classroom.

Take the flag down. In response, the school district superintendent and two other school officials went to her classroom and told her to take down the flag. They also offered her a sign that she could hang in its place, reading, “This is a safe space to be who you are.”

Requested meeting. The math teacher did not take down her progress pride flag. Instead, she told two other LGBTQ+ teachers about the district officials’ directive. A few weeks later, she and one of the other two teachers emailed the Connetquot Board of Education to request a meeting about it. In their email, the two warned that restricting the teachers’ ability to hang pride flags on their classroom walls would harm both the students and the district.

“District policy.” Hours after their warning, an assistant superintendent sent a message to all district employees explaining that “District policy” forbade them from engaging in “political practices” on school premises. Under the policy, according to the assistant superintendent, only two kinds of flags could be hung in classrooms or offices throughout the district: “the American flag and the New York State flag.”

“[P]olitical activities ban.” The superintendent followed up two days later. She told the district that, thanks to one teacher’s “continued refusal” to take down a progress pride flag, the district would have to “fully implement Policy 1310”—the “political activities” ban to which the assistant superintendent had adverted. “[A]dhering to the letter of [that] Policy,” the superintendent said, would help all students, “regardless of what race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or political affiliation they espouse to,” feel “safe, comfortable[,] and respected” in their learning environments.

Principal’s implementing order. The Connetquot High School principal thus ordered the high school faculty to take down any unauthorized flags from their classrooms by the end of the school day. The math teacher, for her part, complied.

Covered by U.S. flags. One week after the flag policy took effect, two of the teachers discovered that the pride flag stickers adorning the doors of their classrooms had been covered with U.S. flag stickers. A student was to blame. After the teachers reported the incident to the principal, he followed up with a related directive. He told the high school faculty that no flag stickers could be placed on the doors or windows of their classrooms, either.

Unequally applied. The district’s flag and sticker policies remained in effect throughout that school year. According to the three plaintiffs, however, the policies did not impact all flags and stickers equally. The principal, for example, made an exception for flags that supported the high school’s curriculum, such as a French flag that hung in the French classroom. The assistant superintendent told another teacher that, though the “sports flags” hanging in his social studies classroom fell within the ambit of the removal policies, he “highly doubt[ed]” that anyone would ask him to remove them. Painted renditions of flags continued to occupy spaces in the high school parking lot. Stickers supporting organizations such as “Students Against Drunk Driving” and the “Anti-Bullying Club” continued to decorate school doors and bulletin boards.

Other alleged differential treatment. The flag and sticker incidents were not the only differential treatment the teachers claimed to have endured during that school year. In May, for example, the principal ordered the math teacher to change the permission slips she had planned to use for the GSA’s annual field trip to the LGBT Youth Conference. The goal was to give students’ parents “more specific information” about the purpose and content of the field trip. She complied with that directive, too, even as “non-LGBT teachers and clubs were not required to make the same modifications.”

Lawsuit. The three teachers sued the district, the Board of Education, and the district officials under Section 1983, Title VII, Title IX, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the Suffolk County Human Rights Law. They alleged that the district and its officials violated their free-speech rights, denied them equal protection of the laws, and discriminated against them because of their sex and sexual orientation. Specifically, they claimed that the pride flags and stickers were their “constitutionally protected... symbolic speech,” and that the district officials discriminated against them based on their pro-LGBTQ+ views and their LGBTQ+ identities.

Dismissal and appeal. A federal district court dismissed the teachers’ complaint in its entirety. According to the district court, the individual district officials were entitled to qualified immunity on the teachers’ First Amendment viewpoint discrimination claims because the Second Circuit had not “clearly established” which First Amendment test governs teachers’ expressive activity inside their classrooms. The teachers’ equal protection claims failed because, even assuming that a district policy had been selectively enforced against them, they had not plausibly alleged an impermissible motive for that disparate treatment. And the Title VII discrimination claims failed because the teachers had not suffered any adverse employment actions.

Having dismissed the teachers’ federal claims, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over their state and local law claims, and it also denied them leave to amend. They timely appealed to the Second Circuit.

First Amendment claims. Affirming, the Second Circuit first found that the school district did not violate the teachers’ First Amendment rights when it ordered the teachers to remove the pride flags. Applying Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), the federal appeals court observed that when speech “owes its existence to a public employee’s professional responsibilities,” the government gets to control the content of that speech or restrict it altogether. Here, the court concluded that the teachers’ classroom wall decorations indeed constituted speech pursuant to their official duties as government employees.

Public school teachers, the court reasoned, are hired to teach a particular curriculum. They are “expected” to create classroom learning environments and materials to support that curriculum, and “in the course of” creating those learning environments, they decorate their classroom walls and doors. In short, the “timing and circumstances” of the three teachers’ classroom wall decorations, said the Second Circuit, demonstrated that the decorations were speech that “owes its existence” to their core “professional responsibilities.” Thus, the teachers’ First Amendment rights were not violated when they were ordered to remove them.

Equal protection. Their equal protection claims likewise failed. Here, the teachers argued that the district targeted their flags and stickers but not others, because of anti-LGBTQ+ “animus” or “malice.” Here, however, even assuming that the teachers made a showing of disparate treatment, and that discrimination based on sexual orientation is an impermissible motivation under the Equal Protection Clause, they needed to plausibly allege that any disparate treatment they suffered was “caused by [that] impermissible motivation,” and they failed to do that.

Mostly, the teachers’ complaint alleged that the district’s acts “were undertaken with discriminatory animus,” were “motivated by discriminatory intent and purpose,” and that the basis for the alleged animus was their “sexual orientation status,” but those allegations were conclusory. They were not enough plausibly to allege the impermissible motivation that the teachers’ selective enforcement claim required, according to the court. Indeed, in the case of the math teacher, when the district officials first visited her classroom, they told her to take down the progress pride flag but not the traditional pride flag, and they offered her a replacement sign that said: “This is a safe space to be who you are.”

Title VII and adverse action. The teachers’ Title VII sex discrimination claims failed in the absence of an adverse employment action. After Muldrow, noted the court, Title VII plaintiffs no longer need to show that an adverse employment action caused them a “significant,” “serious,” or “substantial” disadvantage, but they did need to plead that the action caused “some injury respecting [their] employment terms or conditions,” they must be “worse off,” even if not “significantly so.”

That requirement was fatal to their Title VII claims. The three teachers were not fired or otherwise disciplined for their advocacy. Their pay did not change. Their working hours, job titles, and job responsibilities did not change, either, and the most that they could allege was that they used to display particular flags or stickers on the walls or doors of their classrooms and now cannot, or that they were required to remake a permission slip for an extracurricular field trip. Those changes, concluded the court, do not in any way impact “an identifiable term or condition of [their] employment,” nor do they reflect “some injury respecting” one. Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, 601 U.S. 346, 355, 359 (2024).

Supplemental jurisdiction and leave to amend. Finally, the appeals court found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s decision to decline supplemental jurisdiction over the state and local law claims. The district court did not err when it dismissed the teachers’ Section 1983, Title VII, and Title IX claims; and “when all federal claims are dismissed before trial, the remaining state and local law claims should typically be dismissed, too.”

The district court below also denied the teachers leave to amend because they neither asked for leave to amend nor explained how they would amend their complaint if given the opportunity. On those grounds, that decision was affirmed as well.

The case is No. 25-1197.

Judge: Nathan, A.

Attorneys: Cheryl L. Berger (Lieb at Law.) for Christopher Dolce and Shinaide McAleavey-Polley. Blair Hendricks (Sokloff Stern) for Connetquot Central School District and Connetquot Board of Education.

Companies: Connetquot Central School District; Connetquot Board of Education

MainStory: TopStory IndividualRights SexDiscrimination Discrimination PublicEmployees ESGNews ConnecticutNews NewYorkNews VermontNews GCNNews