Scottsdale parents who discovered secret dossier compiled to silence their speech announce lawsuit

Three parents in the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) sued the district, former SUSD governing board President Jann-Michael Greenburg, his father and his father's wife over the maintenance of a "dossier" allegedly aimed at intimidating them into silence after they had criticized Greenburg.

The parents – Amanda Wray, Kimberly Stafford, and Edmond Richard – allege in the Marciopa County Superior Court complaint that the Greenburgs and the district conspired "to silence and punish dissenting voices and frighten away other potential speakers who might dare express an opposing point of view." 

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Greenburg and his father reportedly kept a dossier on 47 parents who dared to speak out against his policies at school board meetings — a dossier complete with Social Security numbers, background checks, a divorce paper, mortgage documents, trade certifications, and screenshots of Facebook posts. The lawsuit claims that the defendants "misused District resources and what should have been private, protected parent communications to the District to retaliate against Plaintiffs for their protected speech."

The Scottsdale Independent first reported on the "Greenburg Files," an extensive opposition-research-style dossier of parents who spoke up at school board meetings on issues ranging from COVID-19 restrictions to critical race theory. Greenburg reportedly revealed the digital dossier – stored on Google Drive – in August, when he sent a screenshot of an image from the drive to resident Kim Stafford in an email.

The dossier includes 18 folders marked CAN-Network, a reference to the Community Advocacy Network, a group of parents that formed in 2020 advocating for in-person learning and against mask mandates. It refers to parents as "wackos."

The dossier also includes videos showing a man taking photographs of parents and children in the hours before a school board meeting. "Somewhere around here we have a private investigator who's writing down all of their plates," the man says in the video. "They don't know it's me … I covered up my license plate."

Parents also highlighted a video from the dossier in which a speaker says, "I really want Edmond to die. I’ll be so happy, I’ll have a f---ing party," alluding to a vocal parent whom Greenburg has sued for defamation.

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The lawsuit enumerates these and other instances demonstrating animus against the parents, alleged coordination with the school district to compile information and shame parents into silence, a cease-and-desist letter in which the district ordered parents not to use the acronym "SUSD" in any organizing or events, and two lawsuits Mark Greenburg filed against Amanda Wray and her husband.

The district hired Loehrs Forensics for an investigation, which determined that "no forensic evidence exists to support allegations that the [District's] email server or the personal devices of [the selected individuals] were used to create, access, modify, or share the Google Drive folder."

The parents claim that this report ignored the true coordination. The lawsuit notes that the district "did not ask the forensic examiner to consider whether anything from the email system or District staff was used to create, access, modify or share information contained within the Google Drive folder."

The parents bring five counts against defendants: (1) First Amendment retaliation for chilling their free speech; (2) deprivation of First Amendment rights by blocking them from Jann-Michael Greenburg's official Facebook account; (3) intentional and (4) negligent infliction of emotional distress by compiling sensitive personal information, the revelation of which led Wray to vomit; (5) defamation by including on the drive a bankruptcy filing belonging to an "Amanda J. Ross," falsely suggesting that Amanda Wray – whose maiden name is Ross – had filed for bankruptcy; and (6) false light invasion of privacy by suggesting that Wray – a financial planner – had filed for bankruptcy.

The parents ask the court for "general, special, and consequential damages," for punitive damages, for a declaration that the plaintiff's violated their First Amendment rights and more.

While Greenburg is no longer president of the governing board, he has remained on the school board.

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Neither the governing board nor the school district responded to an after-hours request for comment from Fox News Digital.