DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
111952P.pdf 05/03/2012 Turkish Coalition of America v. Robert Bruininks
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 11-1952
U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis
[PUBLISHED] [Gruender, Author, with Benton and Shepherd, Circuit Judges]
Civil case - First Amendment. Plaintiff Cingilli failed to plead facts
sufficient to demonstrate an objectively chilling effect and had not
established standing to pursue a First Amendment claim; the Coalition had
standing to pursue its claim that defendants' action in labeling its website
as "unreliable" and placing it on a list which included Holocaust denial
sites violated its First Amendment rights and injured its reputation through
stigmatizing government speech; however, the Coalition failed to state a
First Amendment claim and the district court did not err in dismissing its
claim under Rule 12(b)(6) as the defendants' actions did not obstruct
student access to the materials or make the materials substantially
unavailable at the school; defendants' website's statements regarding the
deaths of Armenians during World War I were either true or subjective
opinion statements and therefore were not actionable under Minnesota
law governing defamation; nor could the statements be regarded as
actionable allegations of scholastic fraud.