By Katie Northcott, News Director
Note: This story has been updated to reflect that Quick and Crutchfield were removed from the lawsuit.
A complaint against Tullahoma City Schools (TCS) will go before a jury on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
The trial will take place at 9 a.m. in courtroom 3C at the Howard H. Baker United States Courthouse. The courthouse’s address is 800 Market St., Ste. 130 in Knoxville.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed a suit against TCS, former Tullahoma High School (THS) Principal Jason Quick, and THS Assistant Principal Derrick Crutchfield after a THS student claimed his first amendment rights were violated. The student was suspended for three days for posting memes satirizing Quick.
Quick and Crutchfield were later released from the lawsuit.
Among other things, the plaintiff asks that the court declare that TCS’s Social Media Policy and Wildcat Policy violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The original complaint is published below.
The memes are published below.
On Wednesday, Dec. 7, FIRE released the following statement:
A jury trial is set for Tuesday, January 13, in a First Amendment case involving a school district that suspended a student over Instagram memes lampooning the principal.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued Tullahoma City Schools in 2023 after school administrators issued the student a three-day suspension during his junior year for posting three memes. The first meme showed then-principal Jason Quick holding a box of vegetables with the caption, “My brotha.” The second depicted Quick as an anime cat wearing whiskers, cat ears, and a French maid dress. The third showed Quick’s head superimposed on a hand-drawn cartoon character being hugged by a cartoon bird.
Conor Fitzpatrick, one of the FIRE attorneys representing the student, is available to discuss the upcoming trial and the case. FIRE hopes that the jury will agree that the school district violated the student’s rights and award damages.
“A high school principal’s bruised ego does not trump the First Amendment,” said Fitzpatrick. “We hope the trial will make it clear that high school students get to use the First Amendment, not just learn about it.”
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