Can NC censor online criticism from employees? National Guard settlement tests waters
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- North Carolina National Guard agreed to rescind a ban and restore deleted posts.
- The policy's language about discretionary deletion would be removed and replaced.
- The new policy would bar deleting posts or blocking users based on expressed viewpoint.
The North Carolina National Guard reached a settlement Tuesday with a 23-year veteran whom it had banned from its official social media page after he criticized the Guard’s leadership.
The veteran, Timothy Stanhope of Cumberland County, sued his former employer in federal court last year, arguing that the Guard was violating his First Amendment rights by deleting his posts and blocking him from the Facebook page.
Under the proposed settlement — which still must be approved by a judge — the Guard agrees to rescind Stanhope’s ban, restore his deleted posts and amend its social media policy to ensure that similar censorship efforts do not occur in the future.
“After serving my country for 23 years, I know that constitutional rights are not optional,” Stanhope said in a statement. “The right to speak freely includes the right to criticize the government, and that right doesn’t disappear when the conversation moves online. Officials don’t get to pick and choose which opinions are allowed.”
While the settlement only applies to the National Guard, it could create a precedent for state employees to cite in similar cases of alleged censorship.
Stanhope’s lawsuit lists a variety of social media posts that he said led to retaliation from the Guard.
In 2023, while serving in the Guard, he commented on a post about an officer’s promotion with a photo of the officer’s mugshot and a link to an article about his recent arrest for driving under the influence. Stanhope’s suit says the comment “was intended to draw attention to the NCNG promoting officers of questionable character.”
He also made posts criticizing the quality of the living accommodations and food provided to National Guard members, which he referred to as “third world conditions.”
Upon retiring from the Guard, Stanhope found that he had been blocked from the official Facebook page and that some of his comments and posts had been deleted or hidden.
At the time, the Guard’s social media agreement stated that “inappropriate comments may be deleted at the sole discretion of the Department of Defense.”
Under Tuesday’s settlement, that language would be removed from the policy and replaced with the following:
“Posts will not be removed, hidden, or deleted, and users will not be banned or blocked, based on the viewpoint expressed in any comments.”
