From Flynn v. Forrest, decided Monday by Judge Indira Talwani (D. Mass.):
Plaintiff David Flynn, the former Dedham high school football coach, brings this action against Defendants Michael Welch, Jim Forrest, and Stephen Traister for violation of his First Amendment rights. He alleges that Defendants' decision not to renew his coaching contract was based explicitly on his statements to members of the school committee and several concerned community members about his daughter's middle school social studies curriculum. Defendants move for summary judgment…
The following facts are drawn from the summary judgment record and are construed in the light most favorable to Flynn, the non-moving party.
Welch is the superintendent of Dedham public schools. Forrest is the principal of Dedham high school, and Traister is the athletic director.
Flynn is a Dedham resident, and between 2011 and 2019, he was the head football coach for Dedham high school…. That same fall, Flynn's two children were enrolled in the Dedham public schools. His daughter was in seventh grade at Dedham middle school…. [Flynn and his wife had objections to the school curriculum and a teacher's behavior, and aired them with Welch, but didn't get what they saw as an adequate response.] Flynn [then] sent an email to several members of the Dedham school committee, as well as his family and friends. A member of the school committee forwarded the email to Welch.
In the … email, Flynn expressed his belief that Welch had called the meeting only to be able to say that he had listened to the Flynns, not to try to keep the Flynns' children in the Dedham public schools. Flynn came away with the impression that Welch and Dedham public schools "seem[ed] to be supporting the BLM movement." Flynn summed up his meeting with Welch as follows:
- [Welch] supports BLM
- He thinks Dedham is "Astronomically White"
- He allows politics in the classroom
- He thinks every employee of the schools need to be taught how to care for, communicate with and understand the lives of people from all races/cultures.
- He has a goal to [hire] more "non-white" teachers
- He did not care that my daughter is scared when she sees the BLM logo in her class
- He did not care that I expressed how much it hurts me to have to remove my children from the schools I attended in the town I grew up in
- He did not care that his teachers are indoctrinating 12 year old children
- He did not care that the Middle School Principal lied to us twice
- He did not care that the school system still has not provided important information on the new controversial classes they are pushing on our kids
- He doesn't care about the people in this town.
He concluded that Welch was "not willing to compromise" and that "if the teacher [taught] the course objectively and remove[d] the BLM logo from the class, people w[ould] soon get over the fact that the class was purposely created without notifying parents and without having a visible course curriculum, syllabus and learning objective."
