Dr. Lana Foster, a pioneering Black educator in Echols County, Georgia, sued the school district and its officials after being fired in 2018. Foster had previously settled employment discrimination claims in 2011 and 2020, with agreements requiring the district to improve hiring practices and reclassify her termination. She alleged that school officials, driven by racial animus, deliberately failed to implement the terms of the 2020 settlement agreement. While the district court dismissed several claims, it allowed Foster's claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 for denial of contract rights to proceed against the individual officials, denying them qualified immunity. The officials appealed, arguing that qualified immunity should shield them because it was unclear whether they could be held personally liable under § 1981.
The Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion by Circuit Judge Grant, addressed whether the school officials were entitled to qualified immunity. The court explained that qualified immunity protects officials only when their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights. The analysis focuses on whether a reasonable official would have known that their actions were unlawful, not on whether the rules of personal liability are settled. The court held that under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, every reasonable official would understand that they cannot refuse to follow a contract because of the contracting party's race. Citing precedent like Faraca v. Clements and Moore v. Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation, the court affirmed that third-party interference with contractual rights based on race is actionable. The court rejected the officials' argument that uncertainty about personal liability under § 1981 grants immunity, stating that such uncertainty is a question of statutory construction regarding the merits, not the lawfulness of the conduct itself. The court concluded that if proven, the officials' conduct of impairing Foster's contract due to racial animus violated clearly established law.
The decision affirms that school officials cannot hide behind uncertainty about personal liability to justify racially motivated interference with settlement agreements. The case is remanded for further proceedings on the merits of Foster's § 1981 claim, where she must prove that each official's conduct was a but-for cause of the impairment of her rights. The ruling clarifies that qualified immunity is not a shield for knowingly violating the law simply because the path to personal liability is not well-trodden.