- Chike Uzuegbunam sued Georgia Gwinnett College over a 2016 incident when he was stopped from handing out Christian pamphlets in a free-speech zone
- Uzuegbunam had received a permit to speak on one of the school’s two free-speech zones but a security guard still told him to stop after complaints
- The student claimed the college’s policy violated his First Amendment rights
- Two lower courts said the case was moot as he has now graduated and the college has changed its policies
- Yet the Supreme Court sided with Uzuegbunam on Monday in an 8-1 vote, allowing him to pursue the suit and seek nominal damages
- Chief Justice John Roberts alone voted in dissent as he accused his colleagues of ‘turning judges into advice columnists’
By Frances Mulraney For Dailymail.com, 9 March 2021
The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a former Georgia college student – allowing him to pursue nominal damages in a lawsuit against school officials who prevented him from expressing his religious views in a free-speech zone on campus.
The high court sided 8-1 with the student, Chike Uzuegbunam, and against Georgia Gwinnett College, with only Chief Justice John Roberts voting in dissent as he accused his colleagues of acting as ‘advice columnists’.
Uzuegbunam, an American of Nigerian descent, has since graduated, and the public school in Lawrenceville, Georgia, has changed its policies. Lower courts said the case was moot, but the Supreme Court disagreed.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the rare alignment of votes that Uzuegbunam can seek nominal damages for being silenced by Georgia Gwinnett College officials, even after he had obtained a permit to hand out Christian literature and to proselytize.
The Supreme Court on Monday sided with former Georgia Gwinnett College student, Chike Uzuegbunam (pictured), allowing him to seek nominal damages against the school for preventing him from expressing his religious views in a free-speech zone on campus
Georgia Gwinnett College previously had two free-speech zones on campus but Uzuegbunam was allegedly stopped from handing out Christian literature even when he had a permit
Chief Justice John Roberts (pictured) was the only Supreme Court judge to dissent in the decision. He accused his colleagues of ‘turning judges into advice columnists’
Groups across the political spectrum including the American Civil Liberties Union had said that the case is important to ensuring that people whose constitutional rights were violated can continue their cases even when governments reverse the policies they were challenging.
At issue was whether Uzuegbunam’s case could continue because he was only seeking so-called nominal damages of $1.
These are awarded in cases where a person has been harmed by illegal conduct but not suffered significant financial loss.
‘This case asks whether an award of nominal damages by itself can redress a past injury. We hold that it can,’ Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a majority of the court.
‘Despite being small nominal damages are certainly concrete.
‘It is undisputed that Uzuegbunam experienced a completed violation of his constitutional rights when respondents enforced their speech policies against him,’ Justice Thomas added.
‘Because “every violation [of a right] imports damage”, nominal damages can redress Uzuegbunam’s injury even if he cannot or chooses not to quantify that harm in economic terms.’
‘I agree with the Court that, as a matter of history and precedent, a plaintiff’s request for nominal damages can satisfy the redressability requirement for Article III standing and can keep an otherwise moot case alive,’ Justice Kavanaugh also wrote.
Writing only for himself, Chief Justice Roberts disagreed.
Roberts argued that the case brought by Uzuegbunam and another student, Joseph Bradford, is moot since the two are no longer students at the college, the restrictions no longer exist and they ‘have not alleged actual damages’.
Writing about the symbolic dollar they are seeking, Roberts said that: ‘If nominal damages can preserve a live controversy, then federal courts will be required to give advisory opinions whenever a plaintiff tacks on a request for a dollar.’
He accused his colleagues of ‘turning judges into advice columnists.’
It appears to be the first time in his more than 15 years on the court that the chief justice has filed a solo dissent in an argued case, according to Adam Feldman, the creator of the Empirical SCOTUS blog, which tracks a variety of data about the court.
In 2016, Uzuegbunam was distributing Christian pamphlets and talking to students on campus when a security guard told him he’d need to make a reservation and distribute the literature in one of the college’s two speech zones. When he got a permit, he was still stopped by a guard
Uzuegbunam (pictured) sued saying it had violated his First Amendment rights and the college changed its policy in 2017. Yet he is still allowed to seek nominal damages in the case
Georgia Gwinnett College for years had a restrictive policy that limited where students could make speeches and distribute written materials to two ‘free speech expression areas.’
The areas were two small patches of concrete – a patio and a sidewalk- within the 260-acre campus that Uzuegbunam’s lawyers argued amounted to .0015 percent of the grounds.
Students had to get permission to demonstrate, march or pass out leaflets in other areas.
They were restricted to booking them once every 30 days and they were available for only 4 hours on most weekdays and two hours on Fridays.
In 2016, Uzuegbunam was distributing Christian pamphlets and talking to students on campus when a security guard told him he’d need to make a reservation and distribute the literature in one of the college’s two speech zones.
But when Uzuegbunam did, he was approached again and told that there had been complaints and that he’d need to stop.
Uzuegbunam (pictured) is seeking nominal damages, which is awarded in cases where a person has been harmed by illegal conduct but not suffered significant financial loss
Georgia Gwinnett College has stated it will not return to its old free-speech policies
Uzuegbunam sued saying it had violated his First Amendment rights and the college changed its policy in 2017.
It initially defended itself claiming that Uzuegbunam’s discussions had amounted to ‘fighting words’ that are not protected in the Constitution.
‘Plaintiff used contentious religious language that, when directed to a crowd, has a tendency to incite hostility,’ the college’s lawyers wrote.
But the college soon abandoned its defense.
Students can now generally demonstrate or distribute literature anywhere and at any time on campus without having to first obtain a permit. The college has said it won’t go back to its old policy.
Uzuegbunam’s lawyer, Kristen Waggoner of the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a group that focuses on faith-based cases, cheered the ruling.
‘We are pleased that the Supreme Court weighed in on the side of justice for those victims,’ she said in a statement.
‘When public officials violate constitutional rights, it causes serious harm to the victims,’ Waggoner continued.
‘When such officials engage in misconduct but face no consequences, it leaves victims without recourse, undermines the nation’s commitment to protecting constitutional rights, and emboldens the government to engage in future violations.’
Georgia Gwinnett College said in a statement that it cannot comment on pending litigation but that it ‘has supported and continues to support the rights of individuals to freely and openly share their thoughts and ideas on the College’s campus in accordance with the First Amendment.’
In January, during arguments in the case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it was his ‘strong suspicion’ that the dispute has continued because the issue of nominal damages is important to determining who pays Uzuegbunam’s attorneys fees.
Several members of the court also referred to what Justice Elena Kagan called ‘the most famous nominal damages case I know of in recent times, which is the Taylor Swift sexual assault case’.
Uzuegbunam’s case is similar to Swift’s symbolic $1 award when she successfully sued radio host David ‘Jackson’ Mueller for groping her in 2013.
Her attorney Doug Baldridge said at the time: ‘A single dollar on the counter claim is of immeasurable value. It says no means no and for everyone women to determine was it to be tolerated with her body.’
‘Nobody thinks that being sexual assaulted is really only worth a dollar. Nobody thinks that. It’s worth a lot more than that,’ Kagan told Andrew Pinson, who was defending the college, in January. ‘But that’s all she wanted. She wanted to prove a point.
‘That’s what happened: The jury gave her $1. And it was an unquestionable physical harm. But she just asked for this $1 to say that she had been harmed. Why not?’
‘Justice Kagan’s question suggested that really what Taylor Swift wanted was, you know, vindication of the moral right, the legal right, that sexual assault is reprehensible and wrong,’ Justice Amy Coney Barrett said.
In 2017, an eight-member jury ruled in favor of Swift after the pop singer accused former radio host David Mueller of groping her during a meet-and-greet photo session in June 2013
Yet on Monday, Justice Thomas relied on English common law to explain the role nominal damages play in the judicial system.
‘By permitting plaintiffs to pursue nominal damages whenever they suffered a personal legal injury,’ he wrote, ‘the common law avoided the oddity of privileging small-dollar economic rights over important, but not easily quantifiable, nonpecuniary rights.’
‘Until now, we have said that federal courts can review the legality of policies and actions only as a necessary incident to resolving real disputes,’ he continued.
‘Going forward, the judiciary will be required to perform this function whenever a plaintiff asks for a dollar. For those who want to know if their rights have been violated, the least dangerous branch will become the least expensive source of legal advice.’
In response, Chief Justice Roberts suggested a partial solution to the problem he had identified.
‘The best that can be said for the court’s sweeping exception to the case-or-controversy requirement,’ he wrote, ‘is that it may itself admit of a sweeping exception: Where a plaintiff asks only for a dollar, the defendant should be able to end the case by giving him a dollar, without the court needing to pass on the merits of the plaintiff’s claims.’