Krasno, Madeline v. Mnookin, Jennifer et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
MADELINE KRASNO,
Plaintiff, OPINION AND ORDER
v.
21-cv-99-wmc
JENNIFER MNOOKIN,1 CHARLES HOSLET,
JOHN LUCAS, MIKE KLEIN, and NATE MOLL,
Defendants.
Plaintiff Madeline Krasno is a self-described advocate for humane treatment of
animals. In this civil action, she seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as nominal
damages, claiming that the University of Wisconsin-Madison (“UW”) Chancellor and
several of UW officials responsible for communications violated her First Amendment
rights by censoring her speech in the comment threads on the UW’s Instagram and
Facebook accounts related to alleged animal abuse in UW primate testing facilities. The
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed this court’s original opinion granting
summary judgment to defendants and remanded the case with instructions to enter
judgment for plaintiff consistent with its opinion.2 Krasno v. Mnookin, 148 F.4th 465 (7th
Cir. 2025). After remand, however, the parties were unable to agree on a proposed final
judgment, especially as to plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief, so they sought and
received approval from this court to file simultaneous briefs and proposed final judgments.
1The court has substituted Jennifer Mnookin, the current Chancellor for the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, for her predecessor, Rebecca Blank. (Dkt. #64, at n.1.)
2 By consent of the parties, Magistrate Judge Stephan Crocker originally considered this case on the
merits. Having retired by the time of remand, the case was randomly reassigned to me.
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(Dkt. ##75-76, 79.) Having reviewed those submissions (dkt. ##80-82), the court will
enter a declaratory judgment and direct plaintiff to submit a request for attorneys’ fees,
but it declines to enter an injunction at this time for the reasons set forth below.
BACKGROUND3
On November 2, 2022, Magistrate Judge Crocker denied plaintiff’s motion for
summary judgment and granted summary judgment for defendants, holding that: (1)
UW’s rule allowing for moderation of off-topic comments was reasonable and viewpoint
neutral, as well as furthered a permissible interest in preserving the university’s interactive
comment threads for discussion of the subjects it had originally posted; (2) the Eleventh
Amendment bars plaintiff’s official capacity claims related to the decision to restrict her
Instagram account from September 2020 to January 2021, and hide her Facebook
comment dated December 9, 2020; (3) plaintiff lacks standing to seek injunctive relief
prohibiting UW from continuing to use keyword filters to exclude off-topic comments; (4)
the individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to plaintiff’s
claim that they restricted her account and hid some of her comments; and (5) plaintiff
failed to state any viable claim that defendants violated her right to petition the
government for redress of grievances. (Dkt. #64.)
On appeal to the Seventh Circuit, plaintiff only challenged the ruling that her
official-capacity claim challenging the UW’s so-called “off-topic comment rule” -- as
implemented through keyword filters, restricting her Instagram account, and manual
3For the underlying facts that both this court and the Seventh Circuit found were essentially
undisputed, the reader is directed to 148 F.4th at 472-76.
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moderation of individual comments -- was unconstitutional as applied to her. Krasnos, 148
F.4th at 476. On August 1, 2025, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed,
with Judge Easterbrook dissenting, holding this court’s grant of summary judgment for
defendants on that claim was in error, and remanded “with instructions to enter judgment
for Krasno consistent with [its] opinion.” Id. at 486. More specifically, the majority ruled
in relevant part that: (1) plaintiff has standing to bring a First Amendment, as-applied
challenge to the UW’s social-media moderation policies; (2) while plaintiff can seek
injunctive relief related to UW’s ongoing implementation of its off-topic comment rule
through keyword filters and discretionary manual moderation decisions, she cannot seek
such relief for the discontinued restrictions on her Instagram account in 2020-2021 or the
hiding of her Facebook comment in 2020; and (3) UW’s “ill-defined, off-topic comment
rule is neither reasonable nor viewpoint neutral” as currently written and applied to
plaintiff, because it “discriminates against [plaintiff’s] anti-animal testing and pro-animal
rights viewpoint.” Id. at 471-86. With respect to this last ruling, all three members of the
panel agreed that UW’s stated objective for its off-topic rule of “keep[ing] its comment
threads unclogged, enabling its audience to interact with its posts,” was legitimate, but the
majority found UW’s “bare instruction in its Social Media Statement that comments may
be removed if ‘off-topic’ and its discretion-based practice of enforcing that statement
through manual moderation decisions and keyword filters” was “inflexible and
unresponsive to context,” failed to provide “objective, workable standards” to guide its
social media managers’ discretion, and thus, created the potential for abuse, particularly as
applied to Krasno’s “pro-animal rights viewpoint.” Id. at 485-86.
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OPINION
Plaintiff now asks this court to enter final judgment in her favor by: (1) declaring
that UW’s “social media off-topic policy,” as implemented against plaintiff, is
“unconstitutional and viewpoint discriminatory under the First Amendment”; (2)
permanently enjoining defendants from using keyword filters on UW’s Instagram and
Facebook pages and from “[c]ontinuing to implement their off-topic policy to manually
moderate speech within its social media pages’ comment threads”; and (3) award plaintiff
attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). (Dkt. #82-2.) Defendants do
not dispute that a declaration in plaintiff’s favor is appropriate as to her free speech claim
and that plaintiff is entitled to an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, but they
contend that the court need not and should not enter an injunction. Accordingly, the court
will discuss the remaining dispute over plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief before
addressing the proper scope of declaratory relief.4 In addition, the court will set briefing
deadlines for the plaintiff’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs.
I. Injunctive Relief
The determination of whether to enter equitable relief in the form of an injunction
in addition to a declaratory judgment is generally left to the discretion of the district court,
Badger Catholic, Inc. v. Walsh, 620 F.3d 775, 782 (7th Cir. 2010), just as was done here.
As the Seventh Circuit explained in Badger Catholic, the principal difference between entry
4 Defendants also ask the court to enter judgment in defendants’ favor as to plaintiff’s right-to-
petition claim. However, neither plaintiff’s appeal nor the appellate decision addressed the
dismissal of plaintiff’s right-to-petition claim. Thus, this court’s original ruling on that claim and
all other matters exclusive of those related to the off-topic comment rule stand.
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of an injunction as opposed to just declaratory judgment “cannot be enforced by contempt
proceedings, but it has the same effect as an injunction in fixing the parties’ legal
entitlement.” Id. (citing Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 466-71 (1974)). Indeed, as the
Badger Catholic court further explained, “[a] litigant who tries to evade a federal court’s
judgment—and a declaratory judgment is a real judgment, not just a bit of friendly advice—
will come to regret it.” Id.
In her submission on judgment post-remand, plaintiff focused on the four-factor
test set forth in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (2006). The court finds no
fault in plaintiff’s analysis, agreeing that the four factors are likely satisfied in this case,
except that eBay concerned the conduct of two private parties, while a public entity like
the University of Wisconsin is presumed to comply with this court’s legal guidance. See
Badger Catholic, 620 F.3d at 782 (“A [state university] litigant who tries to evade a federal
court’s judgment—and a declaratory judgment is a real judgment, not just a bit of friendly
advice—will come to regret it.”). Regardless, the question remains whether an injunction
is necessary. Anticipating defendants’ argument to the contrary, plaintiff points to the
court of appeals holding that UW’s “off-topic comment rule poses an ongoing threat of
actual or imminent injury,” which “is redressable because an injunction against the use of
the keyword filters would remedy the injury allegedly caused by the filters blocking
Krasno’s speech.” Krasno, 148 F.4th at 477 (citing Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S.
61, 74 (2001) (“[I]njunctive relief has long been recognized as the proper means for
preventing entities from acting unconstitutionally.”)). However, the court of appeals made
these statements in the context of finding that plaintiff has standing to seek relief against
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the university’s moderation of her comments. Accordingly, the statements appear to be
more of a recognition that a violation of First Amendment rights constitutes irreparable
injury, which could form a sufficient basis for the award of an injunction, rather than a
directive to award an injunction, never mind the scope of any injunction.
Here, just as in One Wisconsin Now v. Kremer, Case No. 17-cv-820-wmc, 2019 WL
2162231 (W.D. Wis. May 17, 2019), in which this court imposed declaratory relief in lieu
of a permanent injunction against defendant legislators who had blocked plaintiff’s
comments on their Twitter pages, “there are several reasons why an injunction may
unnecessarily complicate this case.” Id. at *1. First, any injunction would need to be
limited, so that it does not encroach on defendants’ recognized right to limit off-topic
comments for legitimate reasons not implicating First Amendment concerns. See id.
(finding similarly as to state legislator Twitter pages). Second, as the Seventh Circuit
recognized, defendants may in pursuit of that legitimate goal, choose to revise their existing
off-topic comment rule, including the use of content-neutral, keyword filters under more
workable standards that are both flexible and responsive to context and “articulate some
sensible basis for distinguishing what may come in from what must stay out of its comment
threads.” Krasno, 148 F.4th at 485. Third, and perhaps most importantly, short of a flat
prohibition on the use of any keywords, which the Seventh Circuit’s opinion seems to
acknowledge would be too sweeping, this court would be hard pressed to give the litigants
clear guidance on how to conduct themselves beyond that set forth in the aspirational
language in that opinion, which with respect is far from specific enough to insure
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meaningful enforcement in a subsequent contempt proceeding, much less to guide
defendants to avoid a contempt citation unwittingly.
Further, defendants represent that they have not manually moderated plaintiff’s
speech within the comment threads in years, nor have they applied or used keyword filters
to enforce the off-topic comment rule as to plaintiff since the Seventh Circuit issued its
decision more than three months ago, as evidenced by the fact that plaintiff has not
complained of any further improper action taken by defendants. (See dkt. #81, at 5.)
More importantly, defendants further represent that they will not apply the off-topic
comment rule to plaintiff or use keyword filters to enforce this rule as to plaintiff without
revising any such practices to conform to the Seventh Circuit’s instruction to create
“objective, workable standards” that are applied in a viewpoint neutral manner.
These uncontradicted representations underscore that the immediate availability of
a contempt proceeding offered by an injunction is not necessary here. See One Wisconsin,
2019 WL 2162231, *1 (declaratory judgment found sufficient following attestation by
government officials that they unblocked plaintiff’s social media account) (citing City of
Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283, 289 (1982) (“It is well settled that a
defendant’s voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not deprive a federal court of
its power to determine the legality of the practice. Such abandonment is an important
factor bearing on the question whether a court should exercise its power to enjoin the
defendant from renewing the practice, but that is a matter relating to the exercise rather
than the existence of judicial power.”)). While plaintiff vaguely argues that defendants’
“broader conduct” in this case “heightens the threat that UW will continue to employ
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unconstitutional means to moderate her speech” (dkt. #82, at 5), defendants have
explicitly disavowed future application of its ill-defined and discriminatory practices and
have committed to revising them to adhere to the Seventh Circuit’s ruling. Cf. Brown v.
Kemp, 86 F.4th 745, 769 (7th Cir. 2023) (finding in assessing standing that government
official’s “disavowal was not forward-looking and does not therefore diminish the otherwise
credible threat of prosecution plaintiffs face”); Davison v. Randall, 912 F.3d 666, 679 (4th
Cir. 2019) (explaining that there is a “credible threat of enforcement” giving rise to
standing to seek declaratory and injunctive relief where a plaintiff “has been subject to past
enforcement” and the defendant “has not disavowed future enforcement”) (internal
quotations omitted).
Accordingly, the court concludes a declaratory judgment will provide sufficient relief
to plaintiff in this case, making an injunction an unnecessary and frankly unwieldy
complication, especially since this court’s doors are open to plaintiff should she believe that
any future action smacks of bad faith, including implementation of any new off-topic rule
that is not content neutral. See Badger Catholic, 620 F.3d at 782 (“If the entry of a
regulatory injunction can be avoided by a simpler declaratory judgment, everyone comes
out ahead.”) (citing Horne v. Flores, 557 U.S. 433, 449 (2009) (discouraging the use of
regulatory injunction in litigation against parts of state government)); see also Knight First
Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump, 302 F. Supp. 3d 541, 579 (S.D.N.Y. 2018)
(declining to enter an injunction despite finding blocking access to a Twitter Account
violated plaintiff’s First Amendment rights and allowed for the entry of such “because
declaratory relief is likely to achieve the same purpose”). If plaintiff’s “fears come to pass,
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then more relief lies in store. For now, however, a declaratory judgment suffices.” Badger
Catholic, 620 F.3d at 782 (holding same).
II. Declaratory Relief and Attorneys’ Fees
While the parties agree that plaintiff is entitled to declaratory relief, defendants seek
to make clear that her relief is limited to her free speech claim and does not encompass her
right-to-petition claim, the dismissal of which the court of appeals did not overturn.
Therefore, this court will enter an amended judgment in favor of plaintiff and against
defendants Jennifer Mnookin, Charles Hoslet, Mike Klein, John Lucas, and Nate Moll, in
their official capacities, declaring that the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s social media,
off-topic comment rule, as implemented against Krasno, violated her rights to free speech
under the First Amendment by discriminating against her anti-animal testing and pro-
animal viewpoint. In addition, judgment will be entered in favor of defendants and against
plaintiff as to plaintiff’s First Amendment petition-clause claim.
Finally, because the parties agree that plaintiff is entitled to an award of reasonable
attorneys’ fees and costs, plaintiff will be provided an opportunity to submit a motion and
supporting material for such an award, to which defendants may respond in kind. The
court will enter final judgment after ruling on any such motion.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that:
1) The motion to enter judgment filed by defendants Jennifer Mnookin, Charles
Hoslet, Mike Klein, John Lucas, and Nate Moll (dkt. #80) is GRANTED IN
PART and DENIED IN PART as follows:
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a. Plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction (dkt. #82) is DENIED.
b. The parties’ requests for a declaratory judgment as to plaintiff’s First
Amendment free-speech claim (dkt. ##81-82) are GRANTED as follows:
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s social media off-topic comment
rule, as implemented against Krasno, violated her right to free speech
under the First Amendment by discriminating against her anti-animal
testing and pro-animal viewpoint for the reasons set forth in Krasno v.
Mnookin, 148 F.4th 465 (7th Cir. 2025).
c. Defendants’ request for a declaratory judgment in their favor as to
plaintiff’s First Amendment petition-clause claim (dkt. #81) is
GRANTED.
d. On or before January 16, 2026, plaintiff shall submit her brief and any
supporting materials in support of her request for attorneys’ fees,
including itemized time records, invoices, and proof of payment of such
invoices by plaintiff. On or before February 13, 2026, defendants shall
submit their opposition. If defendants challenge the reasonableness of
plaintiff’s fee request in that opposition, their counsel shall also
contemporaneously submit its itemized time records, invoices and proof
of payment of such invoices. Plaintiff’s reply, if any, is due on or before
February 23, 2026.
e. The parties’ requests are DENIED in all other respects.
2) The Clerk of Court is directed to substitute Jennifer Mnookin for Rebecca Blank
as a defendant in this case.
Entered this 16th day of December, 2025.
BY THE COURT:
/s/
__________________________________
WILLIAM M. CONLEY
District Judge
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