Published on February 2, 2026 at 3:45 pm
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A Tallahassee law firm with ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis will represent Duval Schools in two federal free-speech lawsuits brought by educators, and the state Department of Education will pay the district’s bill.
Duval Schools has meanwhile closed its investigations of the teachers — Hope McMath and Haley Bartlett — which it opened amid complaints about their social media posts. Bartlett, a paraprofessional, has returned to the classroom, while McMath, a high school art history teacher, remains sidelined pending a state-level investigation.
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Jacksonville Today received public records showing the state Education Department arranged for the outside firm, Lawson Huck Gonzalez, to defend the district.
Lawson Huck Gonzalez, founded three years ago, became a go-to firm for the Florida education department under previous Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. (and helped direct the search for a new University of West Florida president that selected Diaz as its sole finalist). Partner Jason Gonzalez previously served as general counsel for the Republican Party of Florida, and according to The Washington Post, was a “top adviser” to Govs. Ron DeSantis and Charlie Crist during judicial appointments.
City of Jacksonville spokesperson Melissa Ross tells Jacksonville Today that Duval Schools received the offer of free representation from the Florida Department of Education. The city’s Office of General Counsel, which represents Duval Schools under the city’s consolidated government structure, approved the plan.
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Neither a Duval Schools spokesperson nor Education Department General Counsel David Chappell provided details on how the offer was initiated. Education department spokesperson Nathalia Medina also declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
In the first suit, brought by Douglas Anderson art history teacher Hope McMath, court filings show Lawson Huck Gonzalez will represent Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, the Florida Department of Education, Duval Schools and each of five named school board members: Charlotte Joyce, April Carney, Reggie Blount, Melody Bolduc and Tony Ricardo.
Jacksonville trial attorney Andrew Bonderud, who is not connected to the cases, says selecting one firm to represent multiple “municipal and individual” defendants can help keep costs down. He says it’s not common, though, to see state and city agencies hire shared outside counsel because they have a “pretty deep bench of civil litigators in both offices.”
Moms for Liberty and Moms for Liberty Duval, also named in McMath’s suit, have retained a high-profile conservative firm, Liberty Counsel, which represented Kentucky Court Clerk Kim Davis, who served jail time for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple.
Duval Schools is the only named defendant in the second suit, filed by Bartlett, an Oak Hill Academy paraprofessional.
The free-speech suits
Bartlett and McMath both say their 1st and 14th Amendment rights were violated after they posted to their personal social media accounts following conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s Sept. 10 murder. Both educators’ attorney is John Phillips, who has represented high-profile clients including Omarosa Manigault-Newman when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump sued her for violating a non-disclosure agreement.
McMath’s lawsuit details the events of the school board’s Oct. 7 meeting, where she became a topic of discussion.
That evening, board members Joyce, Carney, Bolduc and Ricardo wore “This is the Turning Point” T-shirts, which Joyce said was to “remember” Kirk, who had been killed the month prior.
Carney also read aloud an email from a “DCPS parent who could not be here tonight.” The letter didn’t name McMath but made specific, critical references to her. The author later posted it to a public Facebook group and identified herself as “the woman who started all three chapters of Moms for Liberty in NE Florida.”
“The First Amendment forbids the Defendants from unreasonably regulating speech or discriminating against speech on the basis of viewpoint during Board meetings,” McMath’s suit reads. “This was clear by the actions of wearing Turning Point shirts, evoking Charlie Kirk as a martyr, restricting speech while disobeying those restrictions and accusing McMath of wrongdoing, incitement and crimes.”
State’s involvement raises questions
Duval Schools says it opened misconduct investigations after it received complaints about the teachers’ social media activity. But the timelines and details of the investigations raise questions about the relatively high level of state involvement in the cases.
An anonymous complainant on Sept. 18 alleged Bartlett’s TikTok posts were “spewing hate about politics, about republicans specifically, about Charlie Kirk, and saying things such as my kid better never be a republican (sic).”
The district concluded its investigation in Bartlett in October, deeming the complaint unsubstantiated because her social media posts “reflect[ed] personal political views” and didn’t violate district policy, according to documents received under Jacksonville Today‘s public records request.
Bartlett wasn’t returned to her classroom until Dec. 15 — one week after she filed her suit.
Paraprofessionals are teaching aides not licensed by the state, so it’s also unclear why Bartlett’s case was forwarded to the state’s Office of Professional Practices, whose purview is reviewing district investigations that could affect teaching licenses.
In McMath’s case, Duval Schools’ investigation file mentions a Sept. 12 email from Moms for Liberty and includes several pages of screenshots of McMath’s social media posts, including a post in which McMath said “karma is a b****” following Kirk’s murder.
Moms for Liberty Duval emailed Bernier, State Education Commissioner Kamoutsas and Duval board members Joyce and Carney.
Minutes after receiving it, public records show, Bernier forwarded it to members of his leadership team with instructions: “Please add this to the case and advise. Prepare this also for the visit next week.”
Then, he replied, “Thank you for your email. This is an ongoing investigation, and I appreciate the additional information and will examine the information immediately.”
Days later, state investigators were on site at Douglas Anderson, where McMath taught.
Nothing in the investigation file indicates the district had already received a complaint about McMath, so it’s unclear what “ongoing investigation” Bernier was referencing. The school district’s investigative report lists Sept. 7 as the date the investigation was opened — three days before Kirk was shot. Duval Schools did not respond to a request for clarification before this story’s publication.
Screenshots of McMath’s social media posts in the investigation file, which were relatively recent posts, differed from what was attached to the Moms for Liberty email — which included posts from before McMath was hired at Douglas Anderson.
On Sept. 18, state investigators visited Douglas Anderson and interviewed students and staff about McMath. The record hints that the state’s head of professional practices, Randy Kosec, personally visited the school; an email from one of McMath’s teaching colleagues refers to questions Kosec had left on the back of his business card.
In December — shortly after McMath filed her federal suit — Duval Schools closed its investigation, issuing McMath a verbal warning for a post that used “profane language.”
McMath, a visual artist who also runs the Yellow House art gallery, tells Jacksonville Today she was surprised to learn that in the end, her politics weren’t why the complaint against her was substantiated.
“So all that stuff you put in front of my face during our other meetings — the transgender stuff, the Gaza stuff, the Charlie Kirk stuff — that has nothing to do with this?” McMath says she remembers asking investigators. “They’re like, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘So you’ve kept me out of class for 15 weeks and you sent this on to the state that is now investigating me, and now you’re saying it’s because I posted a work of art that had f*** on it?'”
The district hasn’t yet returned McMath to her Douglas Anderson classroom, citing the state’s still-open investigation.
Florida Education Commissioner Kamoutsas’ complaint against her teaching license cites three examples: an instance prior to her employment when D.A. students visited McMath at her art gallery and she distributed artwork that said “God is Trans” (though Kamoutsas erroneously referred to the print as a book); her “karma” social media post following Charlie Kirk’s death; and her repost of a political cartoon depicting E. Jean Carroll holding Donald Trump’s head.
A state hearing about McMath’s teaching license is scheduled for mid-February.
A Clay County teacher’s suit
The Duval teachers’ cases are proceeding at the same time a Clay County teacher is also alleging her right to free speech was violated when the state education department threatened her teaching license over a social media post.
Filed on Jan. 26, Kelly Brock-Sanchez’s suit claims she was “acting as an ordinary private citizen” when she posted to social media, “This may not be the obituary we were hoping to wake up to, but his is a close second for me” following Kirk’s murder.”
Clay County Schools immediately suspended Brock-Sanchez, who was a teacher at Ridgeview Elementary. Court filings include documentation from the district alleging Brock-Sanchez’s social media posts created an “extremely high volume of social media notifications, emails and text messages” that disrupted business at the school.
Commissioner Kamoutsas made headlines on Sept. 22 when he announced he intended to revoke Brock-Sanchez’s teaching license. According to Florida’s online database, her license remains active.
Court files also show that Brock-Sanchez was fired Oct. 2; Clay County School Board members voted 4-0 to accept Superintendent David Broskie’s Sept. 25 recommendation that she be terminated. There was no discussion. In addition to her federal lawsuit, Brock-Sanchez has also filed a complaint with the state challenging the legality of Clay County Schools’ decision to fire her. A hearing for that matter is scheduled in April.
Board member Robert Alvero, who is facing criticism for making racially charged remarks in a Facebook Live video, was among the votes to terminate Brock-Sanchez.
Citing active litigation, a spokesperson for Clay Schools declined to comment. Brock-Sanchez’s attorney, Mark Herdmon, did not respond to request for comment before this story’s publication.
