Oregon Supreme Court declines hearing Newberg school board members’ 'doxxing' lawsuit

PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) -- The state’s highest court has declined to hear a "doxxing" lawsuit brought by four current and former members of the Newberg school board.

The petition for review was denied by the Oregon Supreme Court on Dec. 7. It affirms an August ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals reversing a lower court’s finding that the lawsuit brought by former board chairman Dave Brown, former vice-chairman Brian Shannon and current directors Trevor DeHart and Renee Powell was legal and could go forward.

As it stands now, the courts have decided that the lawsuit against teachers and parents of children enrolled in Newberg schools was without merit and that the information shared about the board members was an exercise of free speech.

The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by the four former and current members of the board against local residents Debbie Tofte, Katherine Barnett, AJ Schwanz and Tamara Brookfield, teachers and parents of children enrolled in Newberg schools.

Barnett was later dropped from the lawsuit, which alleged that the defendants illegally shared via the Newberg Equity in Education’s (NEED) Facebook page the private information of the board members in a practice known as “doxxing.”

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