After a lengthy and costly trial over a 2022 First Amendment case, Olathe Public Schools now owes former school board candidate Jennifer Gilmore $259,233 in legal fees, as decided by a federal judge earlier this month.
The payment order, issued April 4, is the latest chapter in a longstanding duel between Gilmore and the school board that began when she spoke out at a board meeting in January 2022, shortly after losing a close school board race in November 2021.
Gilmore, who lost the 2021 contest to Julie Steele by just 65 votes, filed a federal lawsuit against the school district’s top officials, accusing them of violating her First Amendment right to free speech as well as the state’s open meetings law.
Gilmore removed from January 2022 meeting
In her lawsuit, Gilmore said her First Amendment rights were violated when she was thrown out of an Olathe Public Schools board meeting in January 2022 for her public comments.
In that meeting, she insinuated that Steele’s father had “bought” the election.
After some back-and-forth, then-board president Joe Beveridge, who is Steele’s brother-in-law, called on other officials to remove Gilmore from the building.
“They simply didn’t want her at that meeting,” Gilmore’s attorney, Linus Baker, told the Post.
Gilmore sued Beveridge and two other top Olathe employees for, among other claims, violating her First Amendment right to free speech.
In October 2023, the jury agreed that Gilmore’s free speech rights had been violated after she was stopped from speaking at the meeting and awarded her a nominal $1. The jury dismissed several other claims Gilmore made.
Gilmore said district should pay her legal fees
In addition to her one dollar, Gilmore asked for an apology from the board, according to Baker.
The board refused despite updating the public speaking policy to further protect speakers’ First Amendment rights.
“It was vindictive,” Baker said. “They made an example out of her.”
Gilmore then returned to court to claim that the district should pay over $300,000 in legal fees she owed Baker. The district countered with a little over $100,000.
Ultimately, the judge decided that the district owes $259,233 in “reasonable attorney’s fees,” per the April 4 order.
What has this cost the district?
In an email to the Post, Erin Schulte, the district’s assistant director of communications confirmed that $472,000 is what the district has paid on Gilmore’s suit to date.
With the additional $259,000 the district now owes, the district has spent a total of $731,000 on the case against Gilmore.
When asked if this case was a good use of taxpayer dollars for Olathe, Baker said, “only in the sense that it’s a bitter medicine they have to take. They got sent to the principal’s office and they have to pay.”
When asked the same question, Olathe Public Schools declined to comment.
After narrowly losing the race to Steele in 2021, Gilmore ran again in 2023 and lost, this time by a wider margin to Will Babbit.
Beveridge did not run for re-election in 2023.
