Barrett v. Steubenville City Schools

Qualified immunity protects the private funds of an official sued in his individual capacity for actions that have not been clearly established to be unconstitutional, even if the actions are later determined indeed to have been unconstitutional. Even assuming that the termination of a *975public school teacher for not sending his children to the public schools is unconstitutional,1 it is not clearly established to be unconstitutional. This is because the legal conclusion results from a balance that has not been definitively made by the Supreme Court, the Sixth Circuit, or even by federal courts…