Jewish Public Defender Advances Suit Over Israeli Flag-Gun Photo

Cook County must face an assistant public defender’s claim that it violated her free-speech rights by barring her display of a photograph of her standing with a gun in front of the Israeli flag.

The photo was taken during Debra Gassman’s 2002 volunteer stint with the Israel Defense Forces and removed from both a common area in the county public defender’s office and her shared office, the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said. Gassman is Jewish and “devoted to Israel” and she placed the photo, which she’d long hung in her office, on top of employee ...