A longtime Cook County assistant public defender has sued the office, alleging that officials violated her constitutional rights by ordering her to move out of view a photograph of herself posing in front of the Israeli flag holding a gun.
Debra Gassman, who has worked for the Cook County Public Defender’s Office since 1997, filed the complaint on Wednesday in federal court in Chicago. It names as defendants Public Defender Sharone Mitchell and his office.
Gassman and her office began clashing about the photograph after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. According to the complaint, Gassman has displayed the 11-inch photograph taken during her time volunteering for the Israeli Defense Forces in her office for 20 years.
In a statement, the public defender’s office said it “remains committed to creating a safe workplace for all of our staff.”
“Last fall, Law Office management was made aware, by an employee complaint, that a Public Defender’s Office employee posted a picture of herself carrying a large firearm in front of a flag in a common area of our office,” the statement said. “The Law Office responded to the complaint by requesting the employee who posted the picture of herself holding a firearm remove that picture from the common area. The employee complied and was not disciplined. The employee has had exclusive possession of the photo since it was returned to her in October 2023, and it has reportedly been displayed in her office since.”
After the Oct. 7 attacks, the complaint said, Gassman moved the photograph to an area with employee mailboxes to “raise awareness.” The complaint said items such as holiday decorations and cards were sometimes displayed in that area.
“When Debra walked into her office and saw the Photo on her office wall, she felt this was an opportunity to share the atrocities taking place at the time by bringing the Photo out of her office and placing it on top of the employee mailboxes for her coworkers to see,” the suit said.
She was “reprimanded” by her superiors and ordered to move it, the complaint said, and she moved it back to her office at the Skokie branch court.
A superior later confiscated the photo in an “unannounced and unprecedented search of her private office.”
“CCPD Deputies claimed that this photograph could provoke violence and was akin to displaying a Nazi swastika,” the suit said.
The complaint said Gassman received a letter from Mitchell that raised concerns about displaying a photograph of a weapon. Other employees had previously displayed photos of weapons, according to the complaint, which argued that the concern about the weapon was pretext.
The letter, included as an exhibit, asked Gassman to consider “how others could interpret your actions as we all work to adhere to the Cook County Workplace Violence Policy.”
“We understand that tragic world events likely motivated this display and may have compromised your judgment,” the letter said. “We have considered this in our decision not to pursue any disciplinary action at this time.”
Management at the office eventually returned the photograph, the complaint said, but told her that it “could not be placed where anyone might see it from any angle of the entryway to her office.”
Gassman argues that her First Amendment rights were violated by the office, which “imposed a censorship mandate based on the content of her expression through the photograph discussed below.”
Gassman is pursuing legal action so that she can continue to hang the photo “without fear of censorship, discipline, or termination–just as she has for over 20 years without issue and until October 7,” the complaint said.
