State Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Louisiana state Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews violated the First Amendment rights of social media users who were blocked from the senator’s personal account on X, formerly Twitter.
Judge Donald E. Walter of the Western District of Louisiana issued the opinion on Aug. 15, siding with Jackson-Andrews (D-Monroe) over two Louisiana plaintiffs, Maya Detiege and Dayne Sherman, who were represented by the First Amendment Clinic at Tulane University.
The plaintiffs argued that Jackson-Andrews’ posts on her X account reflected efforts to further her official responsibilities as a state legislator on a venue akin to a public square. They alleged the senator deprived them of their federal free-speech rights.
Walter’s opinion cites case law requiring that such a violation can only occur if Jackson-Andrews had the authority to speak on the state’s behalf and she professed to exercise that authority on social media. Ultimately, he concluded the plaintiffs failed to establish the senator was speaking on behalf of her office while posting to her X account.
“Plaintiffs do not advance any new sources of written law, custom or usage to support the existence of actual authority, and … plaintiffs’ cited sources do not establish Jackson had actual authority to speak on the state’s behalf,” the opinion states. “ As such, plaintiffs cannot establish state action, and their Section 1983 (civil rights) action fails.”
In turn the judge granted the senator’s motion for summary judgment.
Jackson-Andrews, an anti-abortion Democrat, authored a post on X in 2022 that celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the implementation of abortion prohibitions in the state.
“We must be about what we talk about,” she said. “Support women and children from womb to tomb.”
Detiege, who is Black, responded critically to the senator’s post, saying, “... You don’t care about pregnant people. You don’t care about children. You don’t care about education. I do not support all Black women. Some of you bitches are very dumb.”
After a subsequent exchange, Detiege was blocked from reacting to posts on Jackson-Andrews’ X account.
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Bruce W. Hamilton, said he and his clients respectfully disagree with how Walter assessed state authority in the case and that they plan an appeal.
“Sen. Jackson was clearly using and continues to use her social media platform to speak in furtherance of her official responsibilities,” Hamilton told the Louisiana Record in an email.
He went on to explain that the senator regularly posts about the bills she sponsors and legislative hearings, as well as soliciting readers’ opinions.
“In short, her X account is a platform for her office and her speech as a senator, which the evidence and public record demonstrate,” Hamilton said. “X is the modern public square – our elected officials should not be allowed to block users from viewing and interacting with their social media accounts because they express critical or dissenting points of view.”
He added that Jackson-Andrews and state Attorney General Liz Murrill have made misstatements about the judge’s ruling. The opinion did not spell out anything about what kinds of speech the First Amendment protects or bars, according to Hamilton.
In an Aug. 15 post on X, Murrill called the lawsuit frivolous and said, “The First Amendment did not prohibit Sen. Jackson from blocking vile, personal, racist attacks on her social media pages. Justice prevails!”
In a footnote, Walter admonished Jackson-Andrews for attributing a quotation to Detiege’s post that was altered. In a memorandum to the court, the senator said Detiege called her a “dumb Black bitch.”
“Zealous advocacy does not require misrepresentation, and further misrepresentations will not be tolerated by this court,” the judge said.
Jackson-Andrews did not respond to a request for comment.
