Case: Individual Employment Rights/First Amendment (N.D. Ill.)

An Illinois federal district court denied Thornton Township and its mayor and an official’s motion to dismiss a youth program manager’s First Amendment free speech, political non-affiliation and retaliation claims, finding he sufficiently alleged the personal involvement of the officials, when he stated they allegedly pressured him to retain the township’s attorney for the school board as a gesture of political support, he refused, and he was terminated and replaced with the mayor’s relatives.