Sarasota High social studies teacher Derek Reich, 31, took to social media shortly after Renee Good was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minnesota in January.
On his personal Facebook page, on his own time, he wrote, in part: “As a freedom loving red-blooded American who believes in limited government, ICE can go f#@% themselves.”
Someone took a screenshot, and soon his words were reposted on a Facebook page under the banner: “Unhinged Sarasota Teacher.”
The school district launched an investigation. A month later, human resources issued a letter that said, in all caps, “This is a VERBAL REPRIMAND,” for violating district social media policies, according to documents seen by WUSF.
Reich and the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association union protested the disciplinary action. The district held firm, at first.
“Numerous complaints were made to the school and district regarding these comments and as a result, there was a disruption within the school and school community,” the district’s human capital officer wrote.
Reich threatened to seek a lawyer. The district relented. A letter from Sarasota superintendent Terry Connor "modified" the disciplinary action and removed the verbal reprimand from his file, to be replaced with a non-disciplinary Memorandum of Instruction on professional expectations.
"Any future incidents similar in nature will result in progressive discipline for the employee," Connor's letter concluded.
A copy of Reich's personnel file, obtained in a public records request, contains no mention of the back-and-forth over discipline, and no such memo. Documents seen by WUSF were provided by Reich.
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Reich, who has taught government and now teaches 12th grade economics, said he wants other teachers to learn from his experience.
"The First Amendment is there for a reason, and I don't care if you're a teacher or you're a public employee anywhere in the state of Florida, you have the right as an American to speak your mind,” Reich said.
Other cases
Case law backs him up. Earlier this year, the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Florida found in favor of a Duval County public school math teacher who posted memes on his personal Facebook page disparaging Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, around the time of the 2020 presidential election.
The Duval school board had reprimanded Thomas Caggiano, given him a three-day suspension and required diversity training. But the appellate court reversed that, saying his free speech rights had been violated.
The appeals court said it involved a matter of public concern, the presidential election, which meant it was fair game for comment. Also, the school board failed to show its work was disrupted by Caggiano's posts.
"My fellow educators need to know that the Caggiano decision protects you. The era of modern-day McCarthyism that's been directed towards teachers in Florida, it's over,” said Reich.
According to Alex Morey, a First Amendment expert at the Freedom Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C., cases like this are becoming increasingly common in the social media age.
“It's something that is being litigated in many courts right now. It's one of the most interesting, spiciest areas of First Amendment law,” said Morey.
The cases have spanned the political spectrum. Caggiano’s posts were pro-Trump. Reich ran as a Democrat for state representative in House District 73 in Sarasota County but lost to incumbent Republican Fiona McFarland.
Public employees at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have fought back after being penalized for posts they made about conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s killing. Brittney Brown was fired, sued and won a settlement of $485,000. A second FWC employee who was fired has also filed suit this month.
“I could have filed a lawsuit the moment I was wrongfully disciplined, but I held back because I refuse to take a single dollar away from the kids learning in the same classrooms I did,” said Reich.
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Reich wrote to back Connor in early June, after his verbal reprimand was removed but that warning of "progressive discipline" remained.
Reich asked for a meeting to discuss how to fix the district’s policy. He eventually heard back from Connor, but only after WUSF made a public records request for his personnel file. Reich said he hasn’t responded yet.
“It felt like the district held my career as collateral in exchange for my First Amendment rights,” he said. “When leadership ignores established case law and won’t fix their own mistakes, going public is the only way to hold them accountable.”
A spokesman for Sarasota County Schools said the district does not comment on personnel matters.
What teachers should know
“The general rule is, if you're speaking on your own time, on a matter of public concern, off the clock, that speech is presumed to be protected, because you're speaking as a citizen on an issue that matters to people. That's where First Amendment protections are at their zenith, in terms of force,” said Morey.
“But there's an exception. If that speech creates a substantial disruption to their employer, that speech can still be punished, and it's that substantial disruption standard that is so squishy that courts have not known with precision how to apply it,” she added.
So far the Supreme Court has declined to review two high-profile cases on school free speech, though it’s a matter that at least two of the high court’s most conservative justices seem to want take up, someday.
The Supreme Court in 2025 turned away an appeal by Kai McRae, a Massachusetts teacher who was fired over anti-transgender TikTok posts she made before she was hired as a high school math and business teacher. According to a dissent written by Clarence Thomas, the lower court’s analysis was “deeply flawed.”
Earlier this year, the high court declined to review a case of a student who wanted to post pro-life flyers at school and was told by the school the flyers could only contain neutral information about meetings, not slogans.
Justice Samuel Alito dissented, citing weaknesses in the 1988 decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier which allowed a school to censor some articles written by student journalists.
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“Since Hazelwood was decided, lower courts have struggled to ascertain its precise limits, and in my view, clarification by this Court is in order,” Alito wrote.
“Both Thomas and Alito have now said what many First Amendment experts — and public employees — have also expressed: that courts need clarity to avoid public employers doing an end run around public employee’s private speech rights,” said Morey.
“The key unresolved question is how much evidence of disruption the First Amendment requires before a school can punish off-duty political speech.”
For Reich, who has taught for eight years and received high performance reviews, those off-duty social posts had no impact on his classroom, his students or the district.
"The administration spent five months wasting public resources and ignoring established case law, all while having definitive proof of my innocence from the beginning," said Reich.
"What someone objectifies as awful is another person's political position, and that's the beauty of America, and the First Amendment, and the greatest document that has ever been written, the United States Constitution."
