The Illinois Department of Corrections has settled two federal civil rights lawsuits filed by people in prison who say their First Amendment rights were violated, according to records obtained by WBEZ and Open Campus.
The department agreed to pay $90,000 to five men who say officials retaliated against them for debating parole reform in front of state legislators. In the other settlement, the state will pay $5,000 to a peer educator fired for teaching about racist Jim Crow literacy tests. Both cases involved prison education programs, and both showed prison officials struggling to respond when those programs prompted incarcerated people to engage with sensitive political and social issues.
The payouts are small compared to other prison lawsuits alleging wrongful death or physical mistreatment, but Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said prisoner civil rights lawsuits can drive systemic change by forcing prison officials to examine and justify their practices.
“There are lots and lots of examples where the lawsuits seeking policy change have made a huge difference, including in Illinois, in a variety of situations about solitary confinement and mental health care, medical care and so on,” Schlanger said.
But, she acknowledged, sometimes “governments treat small payouts as just part of the cost of doing business.”
Plaintiffs and attorneys are not allowed to discuss details because of a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreements. WBEZ and Open Campus obtained the documents through records requests to the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Office of the Illinois Attorney General.
For Anthony McNeal, the settlement resolves a conflict that started in March 2023. At the time, McNeal was teaching a state-mandated civics course at Centralia Correctional Center when a prison counselor interrupted his lesson about Jim Crow literacy tests.
According to the lawsuit, counselor Nathan Tucker demanded McNeal present literacy tests “as having a legitimate nondiscriminatory purpose.” When McNeal explained that teaching about racist voter suppression was part of the approved curriculum, Tucker filed a disciplinary report, charging McNeal with insolence, disobeying a direct order and bringing unauthorized teaching materials to class.
“This case is about a prisoner, a Black man who was teaching about the history of racism in the South and the suppression of Black votes, who got fired for telling the truth,” attorney Alan Mills told WBEZ last year after filing the suit.
The lawsuit alleged IDOC violated McNeal’s First Amendment rights through retaliation. Under the settlement reached in March 2024, IDOC agreed to pay McNeal $5,000, reinstate him as a peer educator and expunge the disciplinary report from his record.
Mills said that prison officials are more likely to respect people’s rights if they know they can be held accountable in court.
“It is important that prison officials know that there are lawyers ready, willing and able to sue them if they violate people’s rights,” he said.
The other settlement arose from a debate program at the now-closed Stateville prison.
Five men — Lester Dobbey, Joseph Dole, Raul Dorado, Bernard McKinley and Eugene Ross — sued former IDOC Director John Baldwin, Assistant Director Gladyse Taylor and other officials in federal court. According to their complaint, in March 2018, the program held a public debate on implementing parole in Illinois. The event drew state lawmakers, along with journalists, IDOC officials and members of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, which oversees clemency and parole.
Two weeks later, Taylor made an unannounced appearance at a regularly scheduled debate class. Their lawsuit alleged she told participants she did not approve of their communications with legislators, stating it was “getting in the way of IDOC’s pursuit of its own legislative agenda.” The department then canceled the debate program and retaliated against participants through unwarranted disciplinary tickets, interference with their mail and phone access, and unjustified searches of their property, according to the original complaint.
Under the settlement agreement reached in early 2024, IDOC agreed to pay $90,000: $10,000 to each of the five plaintiffs and $40,000 in attorneys’ fees.
Both cases were settled without IDOC admitting any liability. An IDOC spokesperson did not response to a request to comment on the settlements.
One of the debate students, Bernard McKinley — who was released in 2024 after taking the LSAT in prison — is now a law student at Northwestern University.
In a separate lawsuit, Stateville debate coach Katrina Burlet sued after being banned from all IDOC facilities. Seven years later, that case is still pending in federal court.