Teacher’s Assistant Sues Union, Ohio School District for Illegally Withholding Dues from Her Paycheck

Perry High School

An Ohio teacher’s assistant who helps special needs students is suing her school district and former union because the district withheld union dues from her paycheck even after she left the union and formally asked it to cease taking her money.

“Using the coercion of government to take money from a government employee and give it to a union without the employee’s consent is not only egregious, but the Supreme Court has held that it’s unconstitutional,” Jeffrey Schwab, a senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center who represents the Ohio teacher’s assistant, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Monday.

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Constitutional Law Center Urges over 150 Medical Schools to End Race-Based Admissions Following Supreme Court Decision

A nonprofit law center whose mission is to defend the constitutional rights of Americans has sent a letter to more than 150 medical schools throughout the country, calling upon them to end their race-based admissions policies in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down affirmative action.

Liberty Justice Center, which won a major victory for First Amendment rights in June 2018 after the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that non-union government workers cannot be required to pay union fees as a condition of working in public service, has now announced efforts to inform the schools of their “legal obligation to end race-based admissions policies” in response to the Court’s recent ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. 

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Charges Dropped Against Student Arrested After Handing Out Constitutions on Arizona Campus

The state of Arizona dropped all charges against a former Arizona State University (ASU) student who was convicted of trespassing after handing out pocket Constitutions on campus, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) announced on Monday.

LJC filed an appeal on behalf of Tim Tizon in January, challenging the conviction he received after he refused to stop passing out pocket Constitutions on the ASU Tempe campus in March 2022 on behalf of the activist organization Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). Arizona dropped the charges, relieving Tizon of the conviction and sentence which had included a fine and community service, according to the press release.

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Former ASU Student Appeals Trespassing Conviction for Handing Out Copies of US Constitution

Former Arizona State University student Tim Tizon, being represented by the Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center, filed an appeal in the State of Arizona v. Tizon case Thursday after being convicted for trespassing while handing out copies of the Constitution on the ASU campus. Reilly Stephens, a staff attorney at the LJC, told The Arizona Sun Times this appeal is all about protecting First Amendment Rights.

“For us [the LJC], the core idea here is pretty straightforward. If the First Amendment’s going to mean anything, it means that at the public spaces of a public university, a student should not be arrested for handing out copies of the constitution,” said Stephens via the phone. “What could be a more basic free speech principle than that?”

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Arizona State University Student Convicted of Criminal Trespassing for Handing Out Copies of the Constitution on Campus Files Appeal

Arizona State University (ASU) student Tim Tizon was convicted in October of criminal trespassing in the third degree for handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution on the school’s campus. University Lakes Justice of the Peace Tyler Kissell, a progressive, conducted the trial. The Liberty Justice Center is now representing Tizon with an appeal, which was filed on Thursday.

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Doctors File Lawsuit to Block California Law Threatening Physicians for Practicing Medicine Independent of Government Narrative

Two California doctors filed a federal lawsuit that seeks to block a California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) last week that threatens the free speech rights of physicians to provide full informed consent to their patients about the risks of COVID-19 mRNA shots and benefits of early treatment with off-label drugs.

The new law threatens to punish doctors who do not support the government’s established narrative, called the “scientific consensus,” on COVID-19 with revocation of their license, and livelihood.

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Trial Update on Tennessee Principal Placed on Leave for Warning Students About Social Media Censorship

A lawsuit filed by a Shelby County Schools (SCS) principal placed on leave for warning students about social media censorship is making steady progress. As The Tennessee Star reported in January, Cordova High School Principal Barton Thorne had lectured students during a weekly “principal’s message” on the importance of free speech and the marketplace of ideas following the Capitol Hill riot, which he condemned.

Shelby County Board of Education (SCBE) reinstated Thorne the day that he filed the lawsuit against them. The Liberty Justice Center (LJC) is representing Thorne in the case, Thorne v. Shelby County Board of Education. In the lawsuit, Thorne alleged that SCBE violated his right to free speech and had damaged his career, reputation, and family through their response to the public and media.

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Tennessee Supreme Court Agrees to Hear State’s School Voucher Appeal

The Tennessee Supreme Court has agreed to the state’s appeal on the constitutionality of its education savings account program (ESA). The pilot school voucher program has been tied up in a legal battle for all of 2020 after its passage by the General Assembly in 2019, thereby preventing any planned advancement of the program.

The program was previously ruled unconstitutional by Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Anne Martin. She assessed it would disproportionately impact two counties: Shelby County Schools (SCS) and Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS). Those districts reportedly contain about 90 percent of the state’s failing schools list. The Court of Appeals upheld Martin’s decision last September.

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Ohio Custodians Sue Kent State and Union for Illegally Deducting Fees

  A group of custodians at Kent State University are suing their employer and its union representatives, who have continued to illegally deduct dues from their paychecks after they resigned their membership. The custodians, Annamarie Hannay, Adda Gape, and John Kohl, are being assisted in their legal challenge by The Buckeye Institute and the Liberty Justice Center, which represented Mark Janus in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Janus v. AFSCME. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for government employers to withhold union dues from employees without their “affirmative consent.” As a result of that ruling, Hannay, Gape, and Kohl resigned their union membership and asked the university to stop deducting dues from their paychecks. The union, which happens to be the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), said in response that members can only opt-out of union membership “once per year during a 15-day window preceding the anniversary of their signature on a union card,” according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs allege that AFSCME refused to honor their resignations outside of “arbitrary opt-out periods.” “AFSCME is putting money before workers. The union is violating workers’ constitutional rights by denying their resignations…

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