Appeals Court Partially Revives Civil Rights Lawsuit Tied To African Meeting House Hate Crime

A civil rights lawsuit filed by Rose Marie Samuels has new life after the Appeals Court of Massachusetts vacated a summary judgment made by Nantucket Superior Court Judge Mark Gildea in 2023. Gildea had dismissed Samuels’ claim against Town Manager Libby Gibson for her behavior in a Select Board meeting five years ago while the two sides were discussing the investigation into the 2018 African Meeting House hate crime. The appeals court has now remanded the case back to the Superior Court for reconsideration. 

“The record is sufficient to create a material dispute of fact over whether Gibson attempted to interfere with Samuels's free speech rights,” Associate Justice Rachel E. Hershfang said in her conclusion. “Gibson repeatedly spoke over Samuels, told Samuels she was ‘not going to speak,’ approached Samuels in a manner that Samuels described as ‘physically threatening,’ and twice asked, as she stood over Samuels, ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

“We vacate so much of the judgment and the order denying the motion for reconsideration as relate to Samuels's MCRA claim against Gibson and remand for further proceedings on that claim,” Hershfang continued. “The judgment and the order for reconsideration are otherwise affirmed.”

All other summary judgments made by Gildea, including decisions that Barros’ and Samuel’s free speech were not hindered at the meeting, and that Barros was not the victim of a Massachusetts Civil Rights Act violation, were upheld and remain in place after Hershfang and Associate Justice Vickie Henry issued the majority decision. The only decision vacated was Samuels' MCRA claim against Gibson, which argues that Gibson attempted to interfere with Samuel’s civil rights through “threats, intimidation, or coercion.” This was a unanimous decision among Hershfang, Henry, and Associate Justice Paul Hart Smyth.

The lawsuit stems from a March 11^th, 2020 Select Board meeting where Barros and Samuels alleged their civil rights were violated by former police chief Bill Pittman and Gibson during a discussion about the 2018 African Meeting House hate crime, where someone spray painted the words “N***ger Leave!” in large black letters on the doors of the African Meeting House. They were voicing their displeasure with the progress of the investigation into who was responsible.

A tense exchange with those town officials at the meeting included Gibson storming out of the meeting room after telling Samuels the venue was not the forum to discuss the hate crime and pushing back on Samuels telling her she did not answer questions truthfully in a previous meeting. It also included Samuels and Barros saying members of the community knew who committed the hate crime, which Gibson responded to by saying they should tell the police. Pittman said nobody told the police the name and engaged in a back-and-forth with Barros at the meeting. He explained that at the time, the investigation had been handed over to the State Police.

Barros and Samuels filed the lawsuit in Nantucket Superior Court in the aftermath of this meeting, and Gildea declared in his ruling two years ago that the town officials named in the lawsuit did not violate Barros’ and Samuels’ civil rights or right to free speech and granted the Town’s motion for summary judgment in the case.

“No reasonable jury could find that the defendants curtailed or attempted to curtail Samuels’s speech based on viewpoint in violation of Article 16,” Gildea wrote, referring to Article 16 in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, relating to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. “No reasonable factfinder could conclude that the brief interruptions of Samuels, coupled with the failure to interrupt Pittman, represents an attempt by Town officials to give one side an advantage in expressing views about the investigation...Objectively viewed, Pittman’s actions were not an attempt to curtail Barros’s speech about the African Meeting House investigation based on Barros’s viewpoint.”

The Current reached out to David Hadas, who is representing Samuels and Barros, as well as Deborah Ecker, who is representing the Select Board, Gibson, and Pittman, seeking comment on the decision, and whether they see this progressing to a jury trial or being settled beforehand, but have not yet received a response.

In a dissenting motion made by Smyth, he argued that a jury would be able to conclude free speech violations against the defendants as it pertained to both Samuels and Barros, as well as violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act against both Samuels and Barros. Smyth called Gibson and Pittman leaders of “the all-white Nantucket power elite” and said they treated Samuels differently than white speakers. He added that just because Samuels and Barros had the courage to continue speaking despite the intimidation of Gibson and Pittman during the meeting, that doesn’t diminish the actions of the defendants from being any less unconstitutional.

“Considering the record in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, a rational jury could conclude that the defendants, motivated by self-preservation and their attempts to conceal the identities of the suspected perpetrators of the desecration of the African Meeting House, effectively deterred Samuels, and would have likewise deterred a person of reasonable fortitude, from freely exercising the right to speak on public issues as guaranteed by articles 16 and 19 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights,” Smyth said in his dissent. “A rational jury could also conclude that Pittman sufficiently deterred Barros from exercising his rights under articles 16 and 19, and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act by publicly accusing Barros of acting as a noncooperative troublemaker who was spreading baseless rumors that divided the island."

Smyth said that whether Pittman attempted to coerce or did in fact inhibit Barros from exercising his rights under articles 16 and 19, are questions for a trier of fact and that his dissent stems from two fundamental points of disagreement with the court's decision.

“First, we disagree on whether a rational jury could find that the defendants' conduct, as reasonably perceived by the plaintiffs, sufficiently inhibited the plaintiffs' rights so as to constitute abridgment under articles 16, and, for Barros, a violation of the MCRA,” Smyth said. “Second, we differ as to the extent the power dynamic that existed between the defendants and the plaintiffs due to their respective status on the island magnified the defendants' attempts to suppress the plaintiffs' speech because of its content and contributed to the plaintiffs' inability to freely speak to a public issue at the March 11, 2020 board meeting. I would vacate those portions of the judgment related to Samuels's claims in their entirety and vacate the judgment as it relates to Barros's claims against Pittman and remand the matter for trial.”

While no one has been criminally charged for the hate crime, Judge Gildea entered a decision in June of 2022 on a civil complaint against island resident Dylan Ponce, who had previously been named in the civil rights lawsuit as the perpetrator of the hate crime, ruling that Ponce was responsible for the racist graffiti discovered on the historic building five years ago, and that he violated the civil rights of Barros and Samuels.

As a result, Gildea issued a permanent injunction against Ponce that ordered him to stay away from the African Meeting House, have no contact with Barros or Samuels, and stay at least 25 yards away from them in public, as well as requiring that Ponce not violate their civil rights in the future.

According to Gildea’s decision, the “undisputed facts” of the civil case show that “Mr. Ponce spray-painted the phrase “N****r Leave!” in large black letters on the doors of the African Meeting House on Nantucket.”