A federal judge has thrown out the Texas affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers’ challenge to the state’s investigations of educators over social media posts, ruling that the union could not show the state education commissioner had created any new rule for a court to strike down.
U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright signed the order in Austin on Aug. 21, dismissing Texas American Federation of Teachers v. Morath for lack of standing — the constitutional requirement that a party show a concrete injury traceable to the thing it is challenging before a federal court may hear the case at all. The dismissal is without prejudice, which means the union may refile.
The case grew out of a letter Education Commissioner Mike Morath sent to superintendents on Sept. 12, 2025, two days after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, according to the complaint and the letter attached to it. The union said the letter set off a wave of investigations, telling the court that teachers’ speech had been chilled, that teaching certificates had been flagged, and that names had been placed on the state’s do-not-hire registry.
Albright read the letter differently. “The Court does not see any ‘mandate’ in the letter, because the Morath Letter does not announce any new requirement or threat from Commissioner Morath,” he wrote in the eight-page order. “Even assuming the facts as pled are true, the Court finds that no new ‘TEA Policy’ exists.”
The letter, the judge wrote, “simply states that Commissioner Morath would be referring any content that he believed to violate the current Educators’ Code of Ethics to the current Educator Investigations Division” — an office that already existed, applying a code of conduct already on the books. Because the letter created nothing new, striking it down would change nothing: “repealing the letter would not change Plaintiff’s members’ situation.”
The practical stakes for teachers are considerable. A state investigation can end in a sanction against a teaching certificate, and a name on the do-not-hire registry effectively closes off employment in Texas public schools. Albright held that the investigation itself is not enough to get a teacher into federal court. “Referring an incident for investigation or opening and conducting a standard investigation is not an injury-in-fact sufficient to establish standing,” he wrote in a footnote, citing a 2000 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Where, then, should a teacher go? Albright pointed to the State Office of Administrative Hearings, the agency that hears contested cases against state licenses, writing that “any individualized harm allegedly suffered by a TAFT member can be challenged” there. In the same footnote he acknowledged the limit of that route: “The Court understands that TAFT may not make a facial challenge to the Morath Letter at SOAH.” A teacher can contest her own case; the union cannot use that forum to attack the policy across the board.
The order also cleaned up the court’s own record. Albright had already denied the union’s request for a preliminary injunction in an oral ruling, following an April 22 oral argument. Having now concluded he lacked jurisdiction, he vacated it: “The Court’s oral ruling denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction is VACATED.”
Albright was careful about what he did not decide. He declined to reach the state’s argument that the federal court should step aside while state proceedings run their course, and he wrote that the opinion “is not meant to be construed as a comment on the constitutionality of any underlying SOAH decision or proceedings not before the Court.” The First Amendment question at the center of the dispute — whether Texas may discipline a teacher for what she posts on her own account — remains undecided.
The reasoning rested on Reule v. Jackson, a 2024 Fifth Circuit standing decision, and distinguished Kinney v. Weaver, a 2004 case the union had pressed.
Because the dismissal was entered without prejudice, Texas AFT has two paths: appeal to the Fifth Circuit, or return to Albright’s court with a complaint that identifies a member the letter demonstrably injured. The union has not said publicly which it will choose. Until it does, the teachers whose cases are already open are left where the judge said they belong — arguing them one at a time, in a forum where the letter itself is not on trial.