Published on February 24, 2025 at 9:51 am
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An appeals court sided with a now-retired Duval County math teacher who argued his speech rights were violated when he was disciplined for personal Facebook posts.
A three-judge panel of the 5th District Court of Appeal overturned a decision by the Duval County School Board to suspend Thomas Caggiano without pay for three days and to issue a reprimand. It also ruled that Caggiano’s pay should be reinstated from the time he was suspended.
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The School Board decision came after a recommended order by Administrative Law Judge Robert Telfer. The case stemmed from a series of Facebook posts, with the decision involving two reposts by Caggiano of derogatory material about 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Telfair said material in the reposts concerned “violence and abuse of a child, as well as discriminatory and degrading views of women being abused and raped,” according to Friday’s appellate court opinion.
But the appeals court said “the disciplinary charges involve only Caggiano’s two Facebook posts made from his own personal computer, which were both reposts of third-party content that was derogatory of a candidate in the 2020 presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders.”
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The opinion, written by Judge Scott Makar and joined by Judges Harvey Jay and Adrian Soud, rejected the notion that Caggiano, who taught at Sandalwood High School, was encouraging violence or degrading women.
“At best, the reposts demonstrated that Caggiano disliked Senator Sanders (for his use of sexist language) and was amused by sophomoric humor (that in no way promoted violence),” the opinion said. “The posts occurred outside of the school, on Caggiano’s own time and computer, and amounted to little more than harmless political chitchat; they collectively amounted to the proverbial hill of beans.”
