A teacher at Little Miami High School has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Little Miami Schools and Board of Education President David Wallace, alleging the district violated their First Amendment rights by forcing the removal of an LGBTQ flag inside a classroom that reads, "Hate Has No Home Here."
Little Miami's Board of Education voted 4-1 to remove the flag in February, claiming it contained sexual content and was inappropriate for a classroom setting. The flag contained images of a heart-shaped American flag alongside several Pride flags. At the time of the vote, Wayne Siebert, the lone Board member who voted to keep the flag up, warned the decision would certainly result in a lawsuit.
"This is going to wind up on a legal professional's desk," Siebert said in February.
Board member Dan Smith said he voted to have the flag removed because he believed it promoted hate by labeling Christians as hateful.
"When you label all those different rainbow things there, and the trans things, you're identifying with that, and you expect us to love that, and to even like it, but we don't," he said.
A few weeks after the vote, Smith resigned from the Board after social media posts he made denying the Holocaust and praising Hitler came to light. Thirty-eight people have applied to fill Little Miami's vacant seat, but the school Board has not yet selected a new appointee.
What the lawsuit says
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. Southern District Court of Ohio doesn't identify the teacher and only refers to them as John Doe. The teacher's complaint alleges that Wallace and the school district have a history of animosity toward the LGBTQ community, referencing an incident in 2023 where the district scaled back a Scholastic Book Fair because a book contained queer characters. Wallace, who was campaigning for a seat on the school Board at the time, backed the push to remove the book and review the book fair, calling it propaganda inappropriate for students.
The complaint also claims Wallace was the driving force behind the removal of the "Hate Has No Home Here" flag, saying the Board president entered the teacher's high school classroom along with another classroom at the district's middle school to take photos. The lawsuit states that Wallace searched the school's media center looking for "objectionable" books. When he didn't find any, he allegedly told the librarian he "must have received bad intelligence."
In addition, the suit claims Wallace asked the high school's principal and Little Miami's superintendent to remove the LGBTQ flag. When his request was denied by district leaders, he then put the matter on the school Board's February agenda.
The teacher's attorney, Joshua Engel, said in a written statement that Wallace and the school district overstepped their authority by forcing the removal of the flag.
“This teacher just wanted every kid in his class to feel safe and respected — that's it. The Little Miami School Board has turned a simple message of kindness into a fight about free speech," Engel's statement reads. "Teachers do not leave their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door, and the goal of this lawsuit is to protect the rights of every teacher to speak out on important issues that affect their students."
The Little Miami teacher is seeking an injunction from the court to allow the flag to return to the classroom's wall, on the grounds that Wallace and the school district violated the free speech rights of public school teachers by threatening to discipline them for speaking on a matter of public concern.
"The Little Miami School District is aware of the lawsuit filed in federal court. While we cannot comment on the specifics of pending litigation, the district remains committed to supporting all students and staff and maintaining a respectful learning environment, while following state and federal law and Board-adopted policies," a spokesperson for Little Miami Schools said in a statement Tuesday.
WVXU reached out to Wallace for comment, but he did not immediately respond.
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