Bloomberg Law: School DEI training appeal poses complex worker speech questions
If an employee believes that the job training they received requires them to support anti-racism theories, does that violate their free-speech rights? Perhaps. A federal appeals court in St. Louis heard arguments last week by two public school workers who believe so. At the heart of the issue is whether an adverse action is needed for government employees to have standing to sue under the First Amendment or whether the infringement alone is sufficient harm are among the main questions. A ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit could provide clarity for public employers and employees elsewhere.
Professor Brad Mank
“There needs to be an adverse act for there to be standing to sue”, Professor Bradford C. Mank of the University of Cincinnati College of Law told Bloomberg Law. Mank was quoted in the article “School DEI Training Appeal Poses Complex Worker Speech Questions”.
If an employee attends training, disagrees with the substance, and the trainer pushes back, “I don’t know if that alone is enough,” he said. Discomfort with training is too broad a test, said Mank, who isn’t involved in this case.
Thomas Berry of the Cato Institute and James V.F. Dickey, an attorney with the Upper Midwest Law Center and the Center for the American Experiment, which is representing the plaintiffs, had a different perspective.
“A First Amendment violation on its own confers standing,” Dickey said in the article. In the employment context, there often is an adverse action or other negative consequence, but that isn’t needed in free-speech cases, he said.
Sometimes the negative consequences of not complying or of speaking out are clear from the context, Berry said. All that’s needed is a fear of punishment and the plaintiffs here feared repercussions “if they continued to be honest about what they believe,” he said.
Read the story in Bloomberg Law.
Lead photo: istockphoto.com; Mank: UC Photography
Related Stories
Sugar overload killing hearts
November 10, 2025
Two in five people will be told they have diabetes during their lifetime. And people who have diabetes are twice as likely to develop heart disease. One of the deadliest dangers? Diabetic cardiomyopathy. But groundbreaking University of Cincinnati research hopes to stop and even reverse the damage before it’s too late.
Is going nuclear the solution to Ohio’s energy costs?
November 10, 2025
The Ohio Capital Journal recently reported that as energy prices continue to climb, economists are weighing the benefits of going nuclear to curb costs. The publication dove into a Scioto Analysis survey of 18 economists to weigh the pros and cons of nuclear energy. One economist featured was Iryna Topolyan, PhD, professor of economics at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business.
App turns smartwatch into detector of structural heart disease
November 10, 2025
An app that uses an AI model to read a single-lead ECG from a smartwatch can detect structural heart disease, researchers reported at the 2025 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association. Although the technology requires further validation, researchers said it could help improve the identification of patients with heart failure, valvular conditions and left ventricular hypertrophy before they become symptomatic, which could improve the prognosis for people with these conditions.