Connetquot Pride flag dispute: Appeals court rules against teachers
Christopher Dolce, one of the plaintiffs in the case, addresses a meeting at the LGBT Network in Hauppauge on Nov. 3, 2022. Credit: Morgan Campbell
A federal appeals court on Monday rejected the contention of three Connetquot teachers that the removal of Pride flags and stickers from their classrooms denied them free speech and equal protection under the law and discriminated against them because of their sexual orientation.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan caps a controversy in the South Shore district that began in 2022.
That year, following student complaints about large Pride flags hanging in a Connetquot High School math classroom, district administrators asked the teacher who hung them to take down one, known as a Progress Pride flag. The teacher, Sarah Ecke, who served as Gay-Straight Alliance club adviser and used her classroom as a club meeting space, refused to do so.
Administrators then ordered that only United States and New York State flags could hang in classrooms, although Ecke could keep the flags up during Gay-Straight Alliance meetings. Later, a student covered Pride stickers on the classroom doors of teachers Christopher Dolce and Shinaide McAleavey-Polley with those depicting the American flag. In 2023, anti-LGBTQ graffiti was found at the high school.
The plaintiffs identify as members of the LGBTQ community, Newsday has reported.
Monday’s ruling upheld a lower court’s 2025 decision rejecting the teachers' claims of discrimination, a hostile work environment and violations of their constitutional rights.
A lawyer for the teachers did not respond to a request for comment and the teachers could not be reached. District officials, through a representative, declined to comment Monday, but said after the 2025 decision that "the district’s actions in 2022 related to a Progress Pride flag were consistent with applicable laws and regulations."
A Progress Pride flag is similar to a conventional Pride flag but contains additional stripes representing transgender people and racial minorities.
Judges Michael Park, Alison Nathan and Maria Araújo Kahn wrote the Pride flags and stickers were not constitutionally protected symbolic speech. Rather, "a public high school teacher’s classroom wall decorations are speech that ‘owes its existence’ to their ‘professional responsibilities,’" they wrote, citing a 2006 Supreme Court case, Garcetti v. Ceballos, that narrowed constitutional protections for public employees.
"Teachers decorate their classroom walls as part of their duty to create physical classroom spaces conducive to the curricula they are assigned to teach," the judges continued. "Those decorations are thus the Government’s speech, and the First Amendment does not apply to them."
The judges also wrote the district court was right to dismiss the teachers’ equal protection claims, calling it "not plausible" that district officials harbored discriminatory intent toward the teachers. After the officials first visited Ecke’s classroom, they initially asked her to remove the Pride Progress flag but not the traditional Pride flag, the judges noted. They also offered her a replacement sign that said "This is a safe space to be who you are."
David Kilmnick, who was initially a plaintiff in the case and is the president and founder of the Long Island LGBT Network, called the ruling disappointing and said the wording on the replacement sign was vague and inadequate.
"This court decision doesn’t change why this mattered in the first place — an LGBTQ student Pride flag, or a sticker, is a symbol that says ‘You’re safe, you’re welcome,’ and so many kids in Connetquot did not feel that way," he said.
Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.
