O'Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier

Background

Two school-board trustees created public Facebook pages to promote their campaigns and later used those pages to post district news, solicit feedback, and communicate with residents. The pages identified the trustees as "Government Official[s]," and one trustee used a public Twitter page the same way. Two parents with children in the district posted long, repetitive comments; the trustees deleted those comments and then blocked the parents. The parents sued under a federal law (Section 1983) that allows suits when someone acts with governmental authority, seeking damages and orders to restore access. The District Court allowed the case to proceed on whether the trustees acted like government actors, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

Reasoning

The main question was whether the trustees’ use of public social-media pages counts as acting with government authority when they block users. The Ninth Circuit found a "close nexus" because the pages looked official and contained government-related content, applying a local test from earlier cases. The Supreme Court did not decide the underlying First Amendment merits here. Instead, because the Ninth Circuit used an approach that differs from the Court’s new test in Lindke v. Freed, the Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and sent the case back for further proceedings consistent with Lindke.

Real world impact

This ruling pauses the Ninth Circuit’s decision and requires the lower court to reconsider the case under the Supreme Court’s clarified approach. People who run official-looking social-media pages, like elected officials, and members of the public who interact on those pages will have the legal question decided again under a different test. This is not a final resolution of the First Amendment claims and could change after further proceedings.