PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Providence City Councilor Miguel Sanchez has won a key round in his free speech fight with the people he once worked for in Gov. Dan McKee’s administration, three years after he lost a state job over social media posts backing Palestinians.
Rhode Island’s top federal trial judge, Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., found in a 25-page ruling that McKee chief of staff Joseph Almond and deputy chief of staff Antonio Afonso broke the constitutional protections on Sanchez’s speech when they let him go. The judge wrote that the two knew or should have known they could not punish him for using that right.
Sanchez, 28, was a junior staffer in the governor’s Office of Constituent Services, earning $50,000 a year, when he was fired on Nov. 1, 2023. Supervisors had earlier warned him about his personal posts. In the weeks after the Israel-Hamas war broke out, he had called for a ceasefire and shared video of a pro-Palestine rally held at the State House.
McConnell concluded that the account Sanchez posted from was tied to his seat on the City Council, not his state job, and that his work in constituent services had almost no bearing on policy or public messaging. The judge also noted that two other McKee staffers had posted views at odds with the governor and kept their jobs.
The judge rejected the aides’ claim of qualified immunity but did not rule on Sanchez’s requests for back pay, damages or reinstatement. McKee spokesperson Olivia DaRocha said the governor’s office disagrees with the ruling and is weighing its options with its lawyers.
The decision lands as Sanchez, a Democratic socialist first elected in 2022, is coming off a primary win and is in line to become the next City Council president.
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