The Supreme Court won’t hear the case of a former public school teacher who sued her school district for firing her allegedly as retaliation for social media posts that preceded her employment there.

The petitioner, Kari MacRae, is currently a Republican candidate in the 2026 election for a Cape Cod-area seat in the Massachusetts State Senate.

The court denied the petition in MacRae v. Mattos in an unsigned order on June 30. The court did not explain its decision.

No justices dissented, but Justice Clarence Thomas attached a statement criticizing the federal appeals court’s legal analysis of the case as “deeply flawed.”

MacRae, who was a high school math and business teacher, had sued Hanover Public Schools in Massachusetts for damages.

She was terminated in 2021 after school officials found old posts on her TikTok account that they said contained memes featuring “themes of homophobia, transphobia, and racism.”

One video she posted as part of a successful campaign for a school board position said that public schools should not teach critical race theory.

The video also said schools should not teach students that “they can choose whether or not they want to be a girl or a boy.”

MacRae was let go roughly a month after she was hired.

Her termination letter told her that “continuing your employment in light of your social media posts would have a significant negative impact on student learning” at the school.

She sued, claiming the firing violated the free speech provisions of the First Amendment.

A federal district court rejected her claim, holding that the school district had presented sufficient evidence that keeping MacRae in her position could lead to disruption at the school.

The district court also found that the school district enjoyed qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity, a rule created by the courts, shields government officials from individual liability unless the wrongdoer violated a clearly established right.

She appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed.

MacRae argued in her petition filed with the Supreme Court that the lower courts misapplied the high court’s rulings in the wake of the balancing test regarding employee speech that the court recognized in Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205, Will County (1968).

The petition said that after Pickering, the Supreme Court has made rulings that safeguard the First Amendment rights of public employees while making sure government officials can still do their jobs.

The Supreme Court has applied the balancing test to employees’ speech at work or concerning work, but has not applied it to speech that took place before the employee was hired and that was not related to the job, the petition said.

However, the First Circuit did, and “in doing so, it strayed from the court’s jurisprudence, created an unconstitutional condition, and has deprived private citizens of their free speech rights solely because they may decide to become public school teachers in the future,” according to the petition.

In a brief opposing MacRae’s petition, the school district said that its former employee’s publicly expressed speech “directly contradicted the district’s mission and values,” which focus on “ensuring a safe learning environment based on respectful relationships.”

The brief said one photo she posted praised scholar Thomas Sowell.

Another post criticized former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine.

The school district acted against MacRae following the receipt of a letter from a “concerned citizen” about her TikTok posts.

On Sept. 29, 2021, the school district gave MacRae a termination notice stating that keeping her as a teacher in light of her social media posts “would have a significant negative impact on student learning” at the high school where she was working, the brief said.

The brief said that the lower courts correctly interpreted the legal precedents applicable to the case.

In his opinion, Thomas said even though he voted not to hear the case, he nonetheless had concerns about how MacRae was treated and the reasoning underlying the First Circuit’s ruling.

Thomas said he did not see “how the tone of MacRae’s posts can bear on the weight of her First Amendment interest.”

“It undermines core First Amendment values to allow a government employer to adopt an institutional viewpoint on the issues of the day and then, when faced with a dissenting employee, portray this disagreement as evidence of disruption,” the justice said.

“The problem is exacerbated in the case of an employee such as MacRae, who expressed her views only outside the workplace and before her employment,” Thomas said.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which represents MacRae, was disappointed the Supreme Court rejected the case.

“Let’s cut to the chase: Kari MacRae was fired because she spoke out against woke critical race theory before she was hired,” Fitton said in a statement.

“The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up her case is a missed opportunity to uphold the First Amendment,” he said.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the attorney for the school district, Leonard Kesten of Brody, Hardon, Perkins, and Kesten in Boston, Massachusetts.

No reply was received by publication time.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared July 4, 2025, in The Epoch Times.