At issue is use of a third-party digital platform, software known as Gaggle, that they claim the district began using in November 2023 to unlawfully scan students’ emails, documents and other files on the digital devices given to them by the school. Through Gaggle, they say, the school conducted “suspicionless searches and seizures of student expression on a scale and scope that no court has ever upheld — and that the Constitution does not permit.”
The district, the suit notes, currently uses Gaggle under a three-year, $160,000 contract that ends July 31, 2026.
“This case,” the filing reads, “challenges the Lawrence, Kansas School District’s decision and policy to subject all students to round-the-clock digital surveillance — scanning their files, flagging their speech, and removing their creative work from access, often without notice, suspicion of suspected wrongdoing, or meaningful recourse.”
The suit, filed by Kansas City attorney Mark P. Johnson, asked for unspecified monetary damages and for the district to cease using Gaggle, which the suit claims violates the students’ First Amendment rights to free speech, their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and their Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of due process.
The Lawrence School District declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. Exhibits in the lawsuit, however, do include a response from the district regarding a previous cease-and-desist letter requesting that the district end its use of Gaggle. The letter notes that the district believes it is well within its legal rights to use the software to monitor material on student devices.
“At this time,” a June 17, 2024, letter from attorney Bradley R. Finkeldei says, “the District intends of continue using Gaggles’s services ... to ensure the District does everything in its power to protect students from harm — whether from themselves or someone else.
“Moreover, the District is statutorily required under both state and federal law to monitor student’s District-issued devices to ensure they are not used to access or produce harmful content. Under the Children’s Internet Protection Act, district must prevent students from using district-owned technology to access obscene and harmful contest and must enforce those restrictions any time minors use their devices.”
The letter also references student journalists.
Central to the case are a number of plaintiffs who are former or current editors of Lawrence High School’s newspaper, The Budget. They include Jack Tell, 18, identified as a former co-editor-in-chief of The Budget; Natasha Torkzaban, 18, a former co-editor; Suzana Kennedy, 18, a former co-editor; Morgan Salisbury, 18, former editor; Naomi Sui Pang, 18, a former connections manager; and a student identified as A.T., 17, a second-year editor-in-chief.
Other students include Opal Morris, 18, a visual arts student; Henry Farthing, 18, a visual arts student; and P.M., 17, the co-news manager of The Free Press at Lawrence Free State High School.
The students claim Gaggle hindered their ability to work on each school’s respective student newspaper, according to the lawsuit. The students, who were required to house journalistic materials on school accounts, noticed the software seized materials from them.
The students claim they “were obstructed to the point that the journalism teacher and adviser of The Budget, Barbara Tholen, interceded with District officials on their behalf,” according to the lawsuit.
The students claim four editions of The Budget were unable to publish because of Gaggle.
The case raises questions about student privacy, digital rights and constitutional protections in public schools.
ALLEGED SUPPRESSION OF STUDENT JOURNALISM
In the suit, student journalists who worked for The Budget and The Free Press claim Gaggle flagged and deleted journalistic material including publication drafts, emails and collaborative documents. Students who worked for The Budget resorted to using their adviser’s own school account to continue work, the suit says.
That adviser, Tholen, brought Gaggle’s repeated flagging and seizure of student journalists’ materials to the attention of district officials. The suit says she pleaded with officials to limit or discontinue Gaggle’s use with respect to student journalism.
In Finkeldei’s June 17, 2024, letter, in response to the cease-and-desist letter requesting the district to end its use of Gaggle, he noted the district had exempted student journalists from Gaggle monitoring.
“The District took this action after it met with students, heard their concerns, and sought a compromise that balanced the District’s unparalleled duty to protect student safety with the distinct needs of student journalists,” Finkeldei’s letter stated.
The district had promised an exemption for journalism students — but in practice, Gaggle continued to scan and seize their work, the suit claims.
In the fall of 2024, Kennedy, editor of The Budget, began investigating Gaggle. She sought documents from district officials related to the platform’s operations. After exchanging emails with Julie Boyle, the district’s spokesperson, and receiving an estimated timeline on when her records request would be fulfilled, future correspondence between Kennedy and the district were flagged and removed by Gaggle.
Emails containing the requested documents were repeatedly intercepted by Gaggle and never reached her until her teacher was copied into the emails, the suit claims.
“Gaggle’s seizure of Boyle’s emails to Kennedy demonstrates that student journalists’ purported exemption from Gaggle, as committed to by the Board in April 2024, had not actually been implemented,” attorneys for the students said in their filing.
SEIZURE OF SCHOOL ASSIGNMENTS, EMAILS
Two visual arts students allegedly had their assignments flagged by Gaggle for “indecent exposure” or “child pornography,” despite the images containing no nudity and complying with school dress code.
The suit claims Greg Farley, assistant principal of Lawrence High School, pulled the students out of class and subjected them to interrogations, with other district officials, without notifying parents, the suit claims. The students denied the allegations and offered to open and review the flagged images with Farley.
Instead, Farley compelled the students to describe their work from memory, the suit alleges, in an attempt to intimidate them.
The photos were removed from their school accounts and restored after months of advocacy.
The lawsuit also described how Gaggle seized emails which contained mental health-related keywords. A district spreadsheet obtained by student journalists in the district showed Gaggle flagged phrases like, “my mental health,” “I’m not good enough,” and “are you safe?”
Students trying to communicate personal struggles were censored, the suit claims, preventing those messages from reaching counselors, teachers or even parents.
DISTRICT'S ALLEGED RETALIATION
Students repeatedly met with district officials, including Superintendent Anthony Lewis, to voice concerns about Gaggle interfering with their work.
Without notice, the district allegedly brought in legal counsel to the meetings, which led to adversarial exchanges where students did not have representation. The students felt intimidated and unprepared, the suit says.
“On information and belief, the District’s decision to involve legal counsel in these meetings — without warning and in the presence of unrepresented students — was undertaken in retaliation for Plaintiffs’ constitutionally protected activity and intended to deter Plaintiffs’ opposition to the Gaggle surveillance regime,” the suit states.
Students argue that school district policies governing technology use are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The policies limit free expression leaving students without meaningful recourse or transparency, the suit alleges.
Student journalists, in particular, were subject to prior restraint and obstruction, the suit claims.
The district’s unchecked use of AI-driven surveillance technology led to at least eight violations of students’ First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, the suit alleges.
The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the surveillance, restoration of deleted content, compensatory damages and a jury trial.
©2025 The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
