Jury sides with teacher fired for being in DC on Jan. 6, awards $130K in damages

A former teacher has been awarded $131,500 in damages by a federal jury after being suspended and fired for being at the Jan. 6, 2021 protest in Washington, D.C., costing him in both reputation and career.

Jason Moorehead, a middle-school teacher of 17 years in Pennsylvania’s Allentown School District, confirmed throughout legal proceedings that he did attend former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. However, Moorehead maintained he departed from the city by bus shortly after the rally and did not participate in storming the Capitol building.

“I thought President Trump has done a pretty decent job as president. It may have been the last time he was going to have a big rally publicly, and I wanted to experience firsthand what he had to say,” Moorehead explained to the Associated Press in a 2021 interview, adding he wasn’t “trying to promote a lie or a falsehood that [Trump] had the election stolen.” 

But Allentown School District officials took notice of Moorehead’s posts about the event on social media and suspended him indefinitely the next day; he remained suspended without cause for seven months. 

Though the district later attempted to bring him back to work with a requirement to complete a cultural sensitivity course, Moorehead refused on the grounds that the district had created an unsafe environment for him. He was ultimately terminated. 

“I’ve always believed that for the kids to learn in my class, they have to trust and respect me, and that entire trust and respect has been destroyed,” Moorehead shared, saying community members viewed him as a “violent extremist” and frequently harassed and threatened his family.  

The school district is responsible for footing $125,000 of the damages to Moorehead, while school board member Lisa Conover must personally pay $6,000 and former school board President Nancy Wilt must pay $500.

Moorehead’s legal team celebrated the ruling as justice for the falsely accused teacher.

“We are gratified that a federal jury recognized that the Allentown School District violated Jason Moorehead’s First Amendment rights to free speech, assembly, and political affiliation, and recognized that then-school Board Members Nancy Wilt and Lisa Conover maliciously and wantonly attacked him,” said A.J. Fleuhr, Moorehead’s attorney.  

“There was never any justification for this insidious and Orwellian course of action.”