[FAFO...] 'I won't sit back': Fired Yosemite National Park ranger sues Department of Interior

https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/yosemite-national-park-
ranger-sues-21884924.php

Shannon “SJ” Joslin, a former Yosemite park ranger and biologist fired for 
hanging a transgender pride flag on El Capitan, sued the Department of the 
Interior on Monday, alleging it violated their First Amendment rights to 
freedom of speech. 

“Constitutional rights are necessary and guaranteed for every person in 
the United States,” Joslin told SFGATE. “This lawsuit is fighting for the 
rights of average people and is asserting that they don’t just exist for 
the individuals with the most power in this country.”

The National Park Service and the Department of the Interior did not 
immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Yosemite 
National Park said the park had no comment. 

Joslin, a nonbinary bat biologist, was off the clock when they and other 
rock climbers hung a huge transgender pride flag on the iconic rock 
formation El Capitan for three hours in May of 2025. The display was 
responding to efforts by the Trump administration to erase messages of 
transgender people and communities from government websites, including 
Park Service webpages. 

Joslin was fired from Yosemite in August 2025. Two other employees were 
placed on administrative leave. 

Acting Superintendent Raymond McPadden cracked down on flags at El Capitan 
shortly thereafter, restricting anyone from hanging banners, flags or 
signs on the park’s natural features. Anyone who ignores the new rules 
could face a six-month jail sentence. According to the lawsuit, McPadden’s 
restrictions were dated May 20, 2025, the same day the trans pride flag 
was displayed, but weren’t signed or made public until the following day. 

According to the lawsuit, Park Service officials told Joslin they were 
“treating the incident as a criminal matter” and that they were “under 
active investigation.” While Joslin hasn’t been indicted, they haven’t 
been told the investigation has concluded, either. 

Joslin’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of 
Columbia on Monday, alleges that the firing and criminal investigation 
violated Joslin’s First Amendment and Privacy Act rights. Joslin asked to 
get their job at Yosemite back, and for a guarantee that the right to free 
speech would be upheld in Yosemite, in a motion for preliminary injunction 
also filed on Monday. 

“My life has been overhauled by an administration that wants to take away 
basic constitutional rights and ruin the lives of people who think or are 
different from them,” Joslin told SFGATE. “I won’t sit back and accept the 
failing of American democracy, and this lawsuit is my way of giving voice 
to and fighting for all federal, trans and human rights in the United 
States.”

According to the nonprofit PEER, which stands for Public Employees for 
Environmental Responsibility, there is no record of discipline or sanction 
for hanging flags on El Capitan. 

“If Dr. Joslin had hung a flag the administration liked, they would be 
working at Yosemite today,” said Clayton Bailey, founding partner at Civil 
Service Law Center LLP and co-counsel on the case, in a news release. 
“That reality is totally antithetical to the basic First Amendment 
freedoms promised to everyone.”

Climbers have used the rock formation as a canvas to express messages for 
decades. In June 2024, climbers hung a “Stop the Genocide” banner, 
speaking out against Israel’s war in Gaza; in February 2025, climbers hung 
an upside-down American flag to protest cuts to the National Park Service. 

“This administration is targeting Dr. Joslin because it wants to scare 
people into silence,” said Joanna Citron Day, general counsel at PEER and 
one of the attorneys representing Joslin, in a news release. “Dr. Joslin 
exercised their First Amendment rights and is being punished to send a 
clear message — speech the administration doesn’t like will not be 
tolerated. Dr. Joslin was illegally fired and should be reinstated 
immediately.”


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.