Sylvia Gonzalez, a former Texas city council member who said her political opponents punished her activism by orchestrating her arrest on a bogus criminal charge, has agreed to settle the resulting federal civil rights lawsuit. On Tuesday night, the Castle Hills City Council approved the agreement, which includes a $500,000 payment and remedial First Amendment training for city officials.
The settlement was announced about 16 months after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Gonzalez v. Trevino, which revived Gonzalez's lawsuit and made it easier for victims of retaliatory arrests to prove their First Amendment claims. The agreement "closes one chapter for Castle Hills and opens a new chapter for free speech," said Anya Bidwell, the Institute for Justice attorney who argued Gonzalez's case at the Supreme Court. "The First Amendment doesn't come with handcuffs. This outcome sends a message to officials everywhere: if you retaliate against critics, you can be held to account."
