Latest news with #Villarini
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court spikes an excuse for hiding public comment
The Iowa Supreme Court chamber in the Iowa Judicial Building on Feb. 22, 2023. (Photo by Kathie Obradovich/Iowa Capital Dispatch) The Iowa Supreme Court gave citizen engagement and accessibility to public meetings a much-needed boost Friday in an appeal of a lawsuit against the Iowa City Community School District. The district's practice of posting full videos of school board meetings on the internet for on-demand public viewing was at the heart of the case. Government officials, staffs of statewide organizations of cities, counties and school boards, and access advocates like the Iowa Freedom of Information Council had awaited the decision with some trepidation. They worried the court might impose liability for statements expressed during public comment portions of governmental meetings and for their republication via internet posting of meeting recordings on government web sites or YouTube. But the justices unanimously upheld lower court decisions dismissing the claims by Amie Villarini, the former girls' tennis coach at Iowa City West High School. The Supreme Court ruling should curtail a recent practice by an increasing number of public officials who advocated that the risk of defamation lawsuits made it necessary for city councils and school boards to omit or limit public comment periods during their meetings, to warn speakers in advance about what they could and could not say, and even to remove or arrest speakers who made crude or demeaning comments. The court decision takes away any rational basis for a governmental body to claim it should not archive recordings of meetings for later public viewing. The Iowa City case arose because the school district is among the governmental bodies that did not cower to pressure to limit members of the public from speaking their minds, lodging complaints, or heaping praise during meetings. The district also did not give in to pressure to closet away video recordings of meetings that captured those comments. Villarini's lawsuit in effect challenged both practices. She sued over statements by two former West High School tennis players who spoke freely during the public-comment time at a 2022 school board meeting. The students expressed disappointment with the results of an internal school investigation of allegations of mistreatment involving the tennis coach, whom the girls did not identify by name. One girl told the board she believed the investigation protected the coach, not students. The other girl asked the board to change the district's investigation procedures to protect students better. Board members did not respond to the girls' statements. The following day, the district placed Villarini on paid leave for the remainder of her one-year contract. The deputy superintendent said school staff learned after the meeting Villarini had posted comments the administrator described as unprofessional and disrespectful to students. In keeping with its custom, the district posted a complete, unaltered video recording of the school board meeting on its YouTube channel two days after the meeting. The district refused multiple requests from Villarini and her lawyer to take the video down. She sued, alleging the district defamed her by republishing what she called 'slanderous' statements by the two girls. The district defended the case, in part arguing that posting unaltered video of a public meeting of a governmental body constituted privileged speech. The Supreme Court agreed. Chief Justice Susan Christensen wrote in the decision: 'The fair-report privilege protects the publication of defamatory matter concerning another in a report of an official action or proceeding or of a meeting open to the public that deals with a matter of public concern … if the report is accurate and complete or a fair abridgement of the occurrence reported.' The court continued: 'Although we are fully articulating this privilege for the first time, we have recognized a version of it since the early 1900s. At the time, the privilege only covered judicial proceedings and could be defeated by a showing of malice. … Here, we are expanding the privilege and updating it so that it covers the report of more proceedings and is defeated by inaccuracy instead of malice.' The court said it may have reached a different conclusion had the district edited the meeting recording. Yet, the court reiterated the importance of supporting steps that increase public access to governmental meetings. 'The application of the fair-report privilege to this case furthers Iowa's open-meeting laws. … Government entities, including school boards, must prioritize the accessibility of public meetings,' the court wrote. 'ICCSD [Iowa City Community School District] has chosen to comply with these laws with the most transparency possible, and that should not be punished. The fair-report privilege protects those government bodies that provide the public with a full account of their meetings.' Thankfully, the Supreme Court did not mince words when it ratified that comments at a public meeting are privileged communications and that posting recordings of those comments is protected so long as the posted version is unaltered. This common sense support of citizen participation in and access to governments continues Iowa's history of openness and its protection of free speech, while adapting state law to current realities. Letting people watch live-streamed governmental board meetings and archived recordings of past meetings from their homes, offices — or even their tractor cabs — is a positive result from the Covid pandemic, when many people avoided large gatherings. Citizens without transportation, parents with children at home, the elderly, or people away from home learned to use Zoom or YouTube to watch their school boards and city council meetings when they could and from remote locations. By applying the fair-report privilege to meetings live-streamed or archived on the internet, even when they contain untoward comments, our Supreme Court has modernized an important protection for expressive rights of Iowans and articulated how the distribution of full-length recordings of meetings promotes government transparency. With this Supreme Court endorsement, city councils, school boards and county boards of supervisors that persist in opening their meetings only to in-person attendees serve only themselves, not the public. Even more, the court's decision strips away a convenient but now dispelled legal excuse for elected officials to avoid doing the right thing. Randy Evans is a member of the Iowa Writers' Collaborative and his columns may be found on his blog, Stray Thoughts. Editor's note: Please consider subscribing to the collaborative and the authors' blogs to support their work.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iowa Supreme Court: District didn't defame ex-West High tennis coach by posting meeting video
The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a defamation and breach of contract lawsuit from a former West High School tennis coach, concluding a three-year legal battle. Anne Villarini filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the Iowa City Community School District, arguing that the district enabled defamatory comments by two former students. The comments were published in meeting minutes and broadcast in a video of the meeting from April 2022 on the district's board website and YouTube channel. Villarini, who joined the West High tennis program in 2013, requested "on many occasions" that the school district remove the video and redact the meeting minutes, claiming that the comments and video were defamatory. More: Iowa City West High tennis coach sues district, calling comments at school board meeting defamatory Villarini also argued that the district wrongfully terminated her and breached the contract terms. She was hired on a series of one-year contract extensions during each tenure, according to court filings. A Johnson County District Court judge initially granted "summary judgment" to the Iowa City district and dismissed Villarini's lawsuit. In November 2024, the state Court of Appeals denied Villarini's appeal. The Iowa Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts on Friday, May 16, upholding the dismissal and writing that the school is protected by "fair-report privilege." The principle often protects the news media from legal repercussions when it reports on defamation during a public meeting. "Applying the fair-report privilege to public school board meetings adds scaffolding to our open-government structure," Iowa Supreme Court Judge Samuel Langholz wrote in the opinion. "Shielding those that err on the side of transparency by drafting thorough minutes or posting unabridged videos." More: Federal judge grants injunction in Iowa student visa case, halting possible deportation By publishing the meeting video, the court ruled that the Iowa City Community School District was "fairly and accurately relay(ing) statements made during open, official proceedings." The court said the fair-report privilege "furthers the public's interest" by allowing residents to make their own judgments about meetings, school board decisions and board members without having to attend the meeting. During the comment period from the meeting in question in April 2022, a then-Iowa City West High School student described a 15-second experience where Villarini allegedly "touched (her) inappropriately" on her back and thighs and said "inappropriate things." She and another student were critical of how the district handled the alleged situation. "The district made clear to me that my feelings do not matter," the student said, referencing a district investigation and report that preceded the comments. That report confirmed that some of the alleged actions, which included "unwanted physical contact," favoritism, retaliation, and insensitivity, did happen. The district determined that the accusations didn't amount to "incident contact" and were "not violative of any ICCSD policy," according to the Johnson County District Court judge's 2023 ruling. More: Iowa Legislature ends 2025 session with no action on property taxes. Here's what happened: The report cautioned Villarini to "refrain from touching players as much as reasonably possible." Villarini remained the coach of the girls' tennis team after the report was released. Villarini was placed on administrative leave in 2022, the day after the two students spoke at the board meeting. Villarini said the decision was a "knee-jerk" reaction. She received full compensation under the terms of her contract, according to the Iowa Supreme Court. More: Despite a sudden closure 6 months ago, the Sanctuary Pub is reopening under new ownership In her claim for breach of contract, Villarini wrote that Iowa has a public policy to protect 'against school employees being forced out of their jobs by angry parents and students making wild, unfounded allegations for the purpose of ousting that employee.' The Iowa Supreme Court agreed with the district court, which said the claim failed because Villarini did not reference a "clearly defined public policy." Ryan Hansen covers local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. He can be reached at rhansen@ or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ryanhansen01. This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Supreme Court upholds dismissal of West High coach's defamation suit
