Federal court finds Omaha mayor violated First Amendment in regard to deleted social media comment

OMAHA, Neb. —

A federal court found that Mayor John Ewing, Jr. “engaged in viewpoint discrimination of the First Amendment” in connection to deleted social media comment.

The lawsuit dates back to October 2025, when Lisa Kilker wrote, “The Regis building residents have just had to take out a $1 million loan to pay for repairs for the sinkhole. You ran a campaign on promising to help us. What happened to these promises??” on the mayor’s professional Facebook page.

Kilker lives near the sinkhole that formed in January 2025.

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The lawsuit alleged that the comment was deleted and Kilker was then blocked from the mayor’s professional Facebook page.

In the federal court’s ruling that in doing so, Ewing was in violation of the First Amendment.

The court also stated that Ewing is prohibited from deleting, hiding, or removing any comment posted by Kilker on his official Facebook page or “any successor official social media account on the basis of the viewpoint expressed.”

Court documents said Ewing is also prohibited from blocking, banning, muting, or restricting Kilker’s access to comment. He also cannot delete any post or disable the comment function on any post “for the purpose of suppressing” protected speech.

Kilker was awarded $2 in damages as well as almost $50,000 in attorney’s fees and costs.

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