Opinion ID: 2995459
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retaliation for Exercise of First

Text: Amendment Rights Patton and Branch admit that they had a secret conversation with IPS Board member Stewart just before the school year started, during which they shared their concerns about the Plan and potential transportation problems. They allege that the School Board had a policy forbidding employees from speaking with Board members. Their demotions, they claim, were the Board’s chosen method of enforcing this policy; its actions in so doing impermissibly infringed on their First Amendment right to free speech. A state may not take adverse employment action against an employee for reasons that infringe upon that employee’s constitutionally protected interest in freedom of speech. Vukadinovich v. Board of Sch. Trustees, 978 F.2d 403, 408 (7th Cir. 1992). But not all speech by public employees raises constitutional concerns. To recover, the plaintiffs must show (1) that the speech engaged in by the employee was constitutionally protected and (2) that the defendants retaliated against [them] because of that speech. Id. Here, even if Patton and Branch’s conversation with Stewart was constitutionally protected (a proposition on which we express no opinion), the plaintiffs have not provided any evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that the protected conduct was a ’substantial’ or ’motivating’ factor in the defendant’s action. O’Connor v. Chicago Transit Auth., 985 F.2d 1362, 1368 (7th Cir. 1993). The plaintiffs have not presented any evidence to show that Gilbert even knew about their conversation with Stewart, much less that the demotions later recommended by Gilbert and approved by the Board were, even in part, based on the conversation. The district court’s grant of summary judgment on this claim was correct. For these reasons, we Affirm the judgment of the district court for the defendants.