photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Lawrence school board met on Monday, January 13, 2025.

Following a disruptive outburst by a frequent public commenter earlier this month, the Lawrence school board will be considering changes to its public comment guidelines at its meeting next week.

On Monday, the school board will consider making modifications to the guidelines for the public comment periods during the board’s business meetings. The proposed changes are meant to clarify anti-bullying policies for public commenters and to communicate the consequences for people who do not follow the guidelines.

Currently, the guidelines for public comments state that “comments or acts that are threatening to staff, the board, or others in attendance, including the use of language or behavior that is disruptive of the board meeting, will not be permitted during public comment. In addition, because students may be in attendance or watching online, members of the public will refrain from using foul or obscene language.”

The edited version of the guidelines says that patrons who are unable to comply with these procedures may not be allowed to participate in public comments at future meetings. However, people who are not allowed to participate may still email their comments to the board.

The meeting agenda does not go into detail about why the changes to the public comment guidelines are being proposed. However, the board’s last regular meeting on Jan. 13 went into a brief recess after frequent public commenter Justin Spiehs used obscene language repeatedly in his comment despite being asked multiple times to stop.

As the Journal-World has reported, Spiehs, who protested against mask requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been arrested before on school grounds and removed from several public meetings. He has also filed a federal lawsuit against the Lawrence school district, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated. Previously, school district officials had banned him from making public comments at certain meetings and imposed restrictions on his presence on district property.

On Jan. 13, speaking via videoconference, Spiehs began his comments by criticizing the board’s public comment policy, saying, “Isn’t that some s?” Board President Kelly Jones then asked Spiehs to “refrain from using obscene language”; Spiehs responded “F no” and continued speaking, using several more expletives as he went on.

“You can’t say what words we’re not allowed to speak here and come out of our mouth, no matter what your ruling is for it,” he said. “And so if you try to do that, you know it just confirms even more how authoritarian you bes are.”

Jones warned Spiehs multiple times before cutting Spiehs’ video feed off and calling a recess.

“You cannot use foul language when you’re addressing this board,” she said before cutting Spiehs off, with Spiehs speaking at the same time as her. “So, should you decide to come back, again, that will be the rule which we will enforce.”

Other governing bodies in Lawrence have seen disruptions during their public comment periods, as well. This week, a Douglas County Commission meeting was interrupted when a person making public comments via Zoom displayed a sexually explicit video, followed by the Zoom feed experiencing a technical problem.

When the Journal-World reached out to Douglas County staff and commissioners to ask whether the incident prompted a reevaluation of the county’s policy on public comments, a spokesperson for the county said the county had no response, and none of the five commissioners responded.

A similar incident took place at a Lawrence City Commission meeting in April 2024, which was briefly disrupted by several public commenters on Zoom who repeatedly used racist and antisemitic slurs, interrupted and insulted another commenter and displayed Nazi imagery, as the Journal-World reported.

City spokesperson Cori Wallace told the Journal-World in an email that the city had decided to switch to a “webinar” format to protect against disruptions on Zoom. This format allows several trained moderators to assist in moving participants from the “waiting room” to the speaker position during public comment or other community speaking segments of the meeting.

“That is one additional security threshold to accessing the microphone and video as a guest on zoom,” Wallace said in the email. “We are also staffing City Commission meetings to have multiple folks in moderator roles. We know that preventative measures will allow multiple people to act if needed.”