Background and update on teacher’s lawsuit against District 113 officials related to 2023 Israel-Gaza post

In December 2023, families in Township High School District 113 received a letter signed by then-School Board President Daniel Struck that condemned a social media post concerning the Israel-Hamas war that Deerfield High School teacher Britnee Kenyon had recently shared on her personal Instagram account.

Struck’s letter — which said the Instagram story “implicitly disparages the personal beliefs and human decency of a substantial portion of our student body” — was distributed before Struck spoke with the educator personally, D113 lawyers later said in court documents reviewed by The Record.

The district went on to reprimand Kenyon after scrutinizing more of her social media, and a Deerfield resident posted repeatedly on Facebook that the teacher should lose her job, court records show.

Kenyon, who is Jewish, said in court documents that she was harassed by members of the Deerfield community online and later took a mental health leave of absence. Struck faced public criticism and stepped down as board president on Feb. 9, 2024, telling The Record he felt like a distraction.

What has not been previously reported is that Kenyon filed a civil complaint in federal court in October 2024 seeking monetary damages from the D113 Board of Education, Struck, D113 former Human Resources Officer Thomas Krieger and the Deerfield resident who posted online about Kenyon. An amended complaint was filed earlier this year.

Now more than a year and a half since the Instagram story circulated, the parties have submitted settlement-negotiations that Illinois Northern District Court Magistrate Judge Beth Jantz determined on June 26 remain “too far apart to warrant scheduling a settlement conference.” 

Kenyon, school district officials and the three other defendants all agreed to continue settlement discussions and will meet again for a status hearing on Thursday, July 17. 

Barring any breakthrough, the parties may soon begin filing for evidence as Kenyon demanded a jury trial to win relief from the alleged reputational harm, emotional distress and loss of employment opportunities she incurred. 

Township High School District 113 officials declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, while Kenyon’s attorneys did not return The Record’s messages.

‘A call for peace’

In court documents, Kenyon’s lawyer wrote that Kenyon began following author Ibram X. Kendi online in 2019 after the district endorsed a book study that D113 Associate Superintendent of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Mirah Anti was conducting of Kendi’s book, “How to Be an Anti-Racist.”

On Dec. 9, 2023, Kenyon shared a story — a limited-time post that can be viewed by a user’s followers — on her personal Instagram account that was originally made by Kendi and concerned “the military conflict in Israel and Gaza.”

In line with the limitations of an Instagram story, the post was automatically removed from the Deerfield teacher’s Instagram account after 24 hours, the lawyers wrote.

The Record filed a public records request to D113 for the social media posts. That public records request returned three screenshots of stories from Kenyon’s personal Instagram account on Dec. 9, 2023.

“What the Israeli military is doing in Gaza is not only a crime against humanity. It is a crime against history. What is humanity without history? What is history without memory? What is is memory without the writer?” an excerpt of one Kendi quote said.

“Perhaps that is why antiracist Jews are joining with Palestinians and the rest of world to oppose all this carnage from October 7 in Israel to what has happened ever since in Gaza and the West Bank. Jews have experienced the horror of Holocaust, and the double horror right now of people inexplicably denying all that they have suffered,” an excerpt of another Kendi quote on Kenyon’s Instagram said.

After Kenyon shared the stories, a Deerfield resident posted on three different community Facebook pages accusing Kenyon of posting “memes” that “slandered” Israel, the suit says. 

The Deerfield resident also complained about Kenyon to a D113 board member and characterized the teacher’s Instagram story as “antisemitic,” the district’s lawyers said. 

A timeline from the court documents says that, on Dec. 14, 2023, Krieger informed Kenyon that she needed to attend a pre-disciplinary meeting the next day to discuss the Dec. 9 Instagram story.

The teacher reportedly later spoke with Deerfield High School Principal Kathryn Anderson on Dec. 14 about the circulating Facebook posts. 

Struck then distributed the letter that referenced the Kenyon’s Instagram story to D113 families and staff around 6:10 p.m. on Dec. 14. After the letter was published, Kenyon received more communications from people online calling for her to lose her job and accusing her of being an antisemite.

On Dec. 15, Kenyon met with D113 administration and explained she believed her Dec. 9 Instagram story “was not an ‘anti-Israel post,’ but rather a call for peace,” according to the complaint.

More social media scrutiny

Krieger later informed Kenyon that she needed to attend a second pre-disciplinary meeting on Dec. 18, 2023. This meeting was scheduled to discuss complaints the district received and investigated regarding Kenyon’s use of the social media app Snapchat, court records show. 

On Jan. 9, 2024, Krieger issued her a written reprimand that described a report alleging that she was “communicating with students on Snapchat about inappropriate topics such as birth control,” district lawyers wrote. 

The reprimand, however, did not include “any specific finding regarding the topics,” the district’s lawyers wrote, and Kenyon’s lawyers said that she never initiated contact with any students via Snapchat — instead, “it was the students who initiated contact.”

The reprimand also describes Kenyon’s Instagram as violating D113 board policy because certain content, such as a picture of her smoking a cigarette, was visible to students, according to district lawyers.

Kenyon reportedly was informed that written reprimand would likely be released to the public. 

During a Jan. 19, 2024 meeting with D113 administrators, Kenyon proposed edits to the reprimand that removed references to sensitive personal information found on her Instagram account, info that Krieger allegedly added with “reckless disregard” to the impact it would have on the teacher, according her lawyers.

D113 lawyers said the board lacks information as to whether Kenyon was advised the written reprimand would be made public and denied Kenyon’s allegation the educator was forced to recount sensitive personal information in front of administrators in order to have the reprimand edited. 

The claims against D113

Kenyon’s representation filed an amended complaint in May after Judge Jantz granted D113’s motions in April to dismiss counts of defamation and invasion of privacy that Kenyon filed against Struck, court records show.

In April, Judge Jantz also granted D113’s motion in April to dismiss Kenyon’s claim against Struck of intentional infliction of emotional distress, but denied D113’s motion to dismiss the same claim against Krieger, court records show.

In the amended filing, the suit alleges that the educator was harassed, targeted and made subject to a “pretextual investigation” from the D113 board solely because the educator exercised her first amendment rights in sharing the Dec. 9 post from her personal Instagram account. 

Additionally, the lawsuit claims Struck defamed Kenyon because the broadly distributed Dec. 14 letter made her easily identifiable, falsely insinuated that she was antisemitic, was made outside of the scope of Struck’s official duties and harmed her professional reputation. 

Struck also, according to the suit, invaded the educators’ privacy by portraying the educator in a false light and intentionally inflicted emotional distress by publishing accusations on Dec. 14 without verifying their truth, all while the ensuing wave of  “community harassment was the foreseeable result.”

Krieger intentionally inflicted emotional distress by making Kenyon recount sensitive personal information that served no legitimate purpose in disciplinary meetings, according to the complaint. 

Lawyers for D113 argue that, as a teacher, Kenyon did not have “an unlimited right to post publicly” regarding her personal opinion about Gaza, court records show. 

D113 would also have taken disciplinary action regardless of the teacher’s opinion due to the educator allegedly communicating with students on unauthorized channels and having an Instagram account public to students, district lawyers wrote.

The claims against a Deerfield resident

According to Kenyon’s lawyers, a Deerfield resident used an alias, “Michelle Leah,” to write a Facebook post calling for local parents to contact then-D113 Superintendent Bruce Law about Kenyon’s Instagram story. 

The resident allegedly reposted that call on a Deerfield High School Facebook page and a Highland Park-Highwood page, court records show.

After the resident learned Kenyon had not been fired, they again posted concerns on Facebook about “antisemitic behaviors” and identified Kenyon by name, the complaint says. 

The suit claims the Deerfield resident defamed Kenyon, invaded her privacy and intentionally interfered with the educator’s D113 contract by publishing those four Facebook posts that “disseminated patently false and disparaging statements.”

The Deerfield resident’s lawyers on July 7 filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing the resident’s speech is protected by the First Amendment as describing someone as “antisemitic” is not “actionable because such statements are ‘hopelessly imprecise.'”

If the parties are not able to negotiate a settlement, Kenyon will bring her case before a jury and ask for at least $50,000 of compensatory and punitive damages for multiple counts listed in the complaint.

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