Retired Guardsman of 23 Years Banned from Facebook Page for Critical Comments

Stanhope v. Hunt

The North Carolina National Guard (“Guard”) banned retired guardsman Timothy Stanhope from its official Facebook page and deleted his comments—solely because he criticized incidents of mismanagement.

Tim served as a guardsman for 23 years. During that time, he observed some trends in his local leadership and management that troubled him, and he expressed his criticisms on his unit’s official Facebook page. The page is open to guardsmen and the public for viewing and commenting, and the comments section includes a wide range of ideological viewpoints, often engaged in debate. Yet the webpage’s manager could not abide Tim’s critiques of the unit’s leadership. In a clear violation of his free speech rights, Tim was banned from the government webpage, several of his comments were deleted, and his posts mentioning the Guard were removed.

The Center for Individual Rights is representing Tim free of charge in a First Amendment lawsuit challenging the Guard’s actions as a violation of his right to free speech. The North Carolina National Guard’s official government social media page is open to the public and therefore must accept all commenters, even if it disapproves of their criticisms.

Public Criticism of Public Agents

While working for North Carolina’s National Guard, Tim thought the leadership regularly made poor personnel decisions and mistreated low-ranking guardsmen. Because the Guard is a public institution and Tim’s comments were on matters of public concern, the Guard’s Facebook page was an appropriate public forum to express them. Indeed, the page often included both supportive and critical comments.

Over the course of four years, starting in 2019, Tim posted several critical comments on the Guard’s page. His comments ranged from gently sarcastic posts implying that the Guard’s leadership should be required to take fitness tests, to more biting criticism of the failure of the Guard’s employment service to help guardsmen find civilian work. In 2021, after the events of January 6 at the United States Capitol, Tim’s unit was mobilized to the Washington D.C. area. Tim posted critical comments about the mobilization, suggesting the decision was ill-conceived and hastily planned. He believed the guardsmen were given inadequate time to prepare for their deployment, that its length was excessive, and that the housing was inadequate. And finally, in response to the promotion of an officer who had been arrested for a DUI, Tim publicly questioned the Guard’s decision to promote men of poor judgment.

Tim also sometimes criticized the unit’s management in posts on his personal profile page, which then appeared on the Guard page. For example, one post included photos depicting the poor quality of guardsmen’s living quarters with comments comparing them to “third-world” living conditions. He also commented on the quality of the food served to guardsmen, especially as compared with that offered to officers.

In 2023, the Guard  pressured Tim to retire after 23 years of service. Shortly thereafter, the Guard blocked him from its official Facebook page. They also deleted the tags to his critical posts and removed Tim’s comments about the Guard from the page.

The North Carolina National Guard Violates the First Amendment

The right to freely criticize government officials is a vital component of the First Amendment. As government agencies use emerging communication platforms—including social media sites such as Facebook and X—they have an obligation to do so without trampling on citizens’ constitutional right to free speech. The North Carolina National Guard has the authority to exercise discipline if any guardsman’s speech disrupts the workplace or actually rises to the level of insubordination, but it cannot control who posts information on its public social media page based on the content of their speech. Moreover, after Tim resigned, the unit’s action to remove his posts and block his access cannot be defended as an employment action.

The Guard did not have to create a Facebook page, and it did not have to open its page up to the public to comment. But because it did, the Guard now has a responsibility to accept all comers—friends and critics alike—and it cannot discriminate against commenters simply because it disagrees with their views.