A New Jersey school ethics panel has cleared board member Gail Nazarene after a year-and-a-half probe over Facebook posts asking constituents about a possible tax increase, a fight free-speech advocates say never should have started.
Just the News reported that the New Jersey School Ethics Commission ruled in Nazarene’s favor on Sept. 22, finding she spoke as a private citizen when she sought public input on school taxes.
The Alloway Township Board of Education member, a Navy veteran whom the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression calls a “Christian grandma,” faced an ethics complaint less than three months into her first term. Rival board member Sara Cobb filed it in April 2025, accusing Nazarene of private actions that might compromise the board by sharing “specific and potentially misleading tax increase figures.”
Nazarene had asked followers for their thoughts on a proposed tax increase and emphasized she was not speaking for the board. One post without a disclaimer sought opinions if “taxes will need to be raised by 30% to keep the school open.”
The commission’s decision rejected the complaint’s core claims. No reasonable person would think Nazarene was speaking in her official capacity, the panel found. She made a “general public inquiry” at most on an issue “tangentially related to the Board,” and she did not take board action, give orders to school staff, make personal promises, or reveal private budget information.
The proceeding dragged on for roughly a year and a half after it opened. Nazarene said the complaint hung over her head and led her to self-censor. She later said she was “excited” to keep representing constituents “without this complaint hanging over my head,” and that she “clearly” has a First Amendment right to “connect directly with my constituents about important issues.”
"New Jersey did the right thing this time" but the proceeding "never should’ve happened in the first place. If we get wind of another ethics complaint being used as censorship, we are not afraid to sue again."
That came from FIRE lawyer Greg Greubel, who represented Nazarene. FIRE framed the case as a free-speech fight against an ethics process used to chill ordinary political talk.
At the center of the dispute sat a 2022 School Ethics Commission advisory opinion. FIRE and Nazarene’s side argued it defined “private conduct” so narrowly that board members could barely discuss issues the board might later consider, and that disclaimers did little to fix the problem. The commission’s own Sept. 22 ruling still stressed that Nazarene spoke “in her private capacity” when she simply asked for public opinion.
Nazarene filed a First Amendment lawsuit in November 2025. U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn, a Biden nominee, refused a preliminary injunction in a spring ruling and dismissed the case on Sept. 9.
O’Hearn held that Nazarene had not shown an “injury in fact” that was both “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent.” The judge wrote that Nazarene failed to “identify what she intends to say, to whom she intends to say it, or in what ‘medium,’” or even “whether she intends to use a disclaimer.”
The “uneven and sporadic body of enforcement history” by the commission, O’Hearn added, “hardly indicates a substantial threat of future enforcement against” her. The commission seemed no more likely to find probable cause and send the matter to an administrative hearing than to “dismiss the complaint outright as frivolous.”
When Nazarene sued, the commission suspended its proceeding seven months in. After the Sept. 9 dismissal, FIRE told the New Jersey Monitor it would appeal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Six days later, the commission issued the decision clearing her.
Nazarene’s case also spurred legislation. In May, bipartisan bill S-4091 advanced in the New Jersey Legislature. The measure would prohibit the School Ethics Act from being “construed to prohibit or limit a board member from speaking, including via social media, on a matter of public concern, such as a school-related matter.”
GOP state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon backed the effort and tied it directly to open government.
"When we start telling elected officials they cannot speak openly with the very people they were chosen to represent, we’re not promoting ethics, we’re eroding transparency. In fact, we’d be better off if more elected officials engaged with their constituents without fear of crossing some vague or overreaching line."
Cobb, who filed the original complaint, resigned from the board in August. The ethics cloud over Nazarene lasted far longer than Cobb’s remaining tenure.
The sequence is hard to miss. A new board member asked voters about taxes. A rival filed an ethics complaint. State officials kept the case alive for months. A federal judge said Nazarene lacked standing to fight the chill in court. Only after an appeal was promised did the same commission call the posts a basic public inquiry and clear her.
School board members are elected to face hard budget questions, not to treat every Facebook poll as an ethics trap. When a Navy veteran needs free-speech lawyers and a year-plus proceeding to ask neighbors about a 30% tax hike, the process has left common sense behind.
Taxpayers deserve board members who talk straight about costs. Ethics rules that punish that conversation protect bureaucrats, not the public.
