Carrie Schmidt — the Gardner-Egerton mom who sued the school district in federal court after being banned from school events over her opposition to sexually explicit books, has won an important court victory.
On Thursday, March 20, 2025 — saying she was “likely to succeed on the merits,” a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction forcing the district to allow Schmidt to be on school property and attend school events.
The lawsuit stems from Gardner-Edgerton parent Carrie Schmidt’s objection to certain books and political material within the district.
According to the lawsuit, “USD 231 regularly posted and allowed staff and students to post brochures and posters from the group called GLSEN (formerly the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) in its general hallways and classes. The GLSEN organization opposes efforts by legislators to ban LGBTQ books with sexually explicit themes in government and private schools.”
In addition, starting in 2022, Schmidt began to question some of the books in the high school curriculum, including “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian “— which has been removed from shelves at many districts for its sexual content and racial slurs, among other things — and multiple other books.
After Libs of TikTok picked up on the speech and pictures of LGBTQ materials on the outside of teachers’ rooms, Huff formally banned Schmidt from all district activities, including one of her children’s graduation ceremony later this year, and from even attending KSHSAA activities such as regional or state wrestling.
Huff sent Schmidt a letter telling her that — among other things — “actions taken by you in violation of Board policy and state law that have resulted in -threats, intimidation, abuse and harassment directed at school district personnel and students which has caused a material disruption to the school environment.”
The order
Chief United States Judge for the District of Kansas, Eric F. Melgren, took the district to task in his order.
The district tried to argue that Schmidt violated several district policies, state law, and a policy against parental bullying of staff.
“At the hearing, Defendant (Superintendent Brian) Huff was questioned on each of the listed policies and asked to explain how Plaintiff violated any of them,” Melgren wrote. “He was unable to point to any specific language that Plaintiff violated, and instead stated that Plaintiff violated the Board’s ‘interpretation’ of each policy.
Further, the judge took exception to the district’s assertion that speech by third parties, such as Libs of TikTok or commenters on a social media post, violated the Bullying by Parents policy.
“The harm suffered by the staff member was caused by random, anonymous users who negatively commented on the publisher’s post,” Melgren wrote. “Those comments were not made on school property, Libs of TikTok did not post the photo on school property, and there is no evidence that Plaintiff sent Libs of TikTok the photo while she was on school property.”
Gardner-Edgerton argued that Schmidt was still guilty of bullying because she “instigated” Libs of TikTok to make the post.
The judge said that ‘instigating’ is not against any written school policy and the court “finds that this case fails to rise to the level of instigation found in other similar cases,” and “even assuming that Plaintiff was responsible for the Libs of TikTok post, the caption to the post merely says, ‘Strip them of their funding immediately.’ This language is patently unthreatening. But even if it were threatening, it is certainly directed at the school district — not at any individual student or staff member.”
Melgren further noted that Huff admitted he had no evidence of bullying by Schmidt personally.
Melgren also pointed out that Schmidt had been given permission to attend any event she asked to attend, reducing her right “to attend irreplicable events such as her son’s senior banquet, state wrestling tournament, and graduation ceremony” to a privilege was “irreparable harm.”
“The mere fact that she must obtain permission when other similarly situated members of the public do not is a deprivation of liberty,” Melgren wrote. “Defendants cannot strip Plaintiff’s rights down to privileges without just cause.”
Melgren also said the district was unable to explain how Schmidt had violated state law, as they claimed.
Melgren ordered that Schmidt’s right to attend school events be reinstated but upheld a no-contact order against Schmidt for a specific teacher and upheld the district’s decision to remove Schmidt from an advisory committee.
Linus Baker, Schmidt’s attorney, was pleased with the injunction and suggested Gardner-Edgerton would be wise to settle.
“I think they will continue spending good money after bad in fighting this on the taxpayer’s dime. Ms. Schmidt is seeking nominal damages of $1 — and I suspect that the school district has already incurred multiple thousands of dollars at this point in losing to the injunction motion and will spend thousands more to only get the same result,” Baker said. “In my last case, the Olathe school district spent somewhere around $700,000 to avoid paying $1. Superintendent Huff’s ban was unconstitutional from the beginning, and the school district taxpayers shouldn’t shoulder Superintendent Huff’s legal education on what the First Amendment requires.”
The Sentinel reached out to Huff asking if they would seek to settle given the judge’s belief that Schmidt was likely to win a jury trial.
Huff declined to comment other than to state that the district was “fully prepared to defend its actions in court.”
