Lawsuit? No way. Everyone knows you can’t sue the government.
Can she be sued personally? Can she be fired?
The first test: considering “the facts” in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, do they show that the [official’s] conduct violated a constitutional right.”
If the plaintiff’s cause survives that test, the court then applies a second test: whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the time of [the official’s] alleged misconduct.”
If the court finds that the public officer’s conduct did not violate a clearly established constitutional right, or if it was objectively reasonable for the officer to believe that his or her conduct did not violate such a right, then the official is protected by qualified immunity.
In determining if a right is clearly established, the Second Circuit said that it looks to whether (1) it was defined with reasonable clarity, (2) the Supreme Court or the Second Circuit has confirmed the existence of the right, and (3) a reasonable defendant would have understood that his conduct was unlawful. Significantly, the court said that “The question is not what a lawyer would learn or intuit from researching case law, but what a reasonable person in [the official’s] position should know about the constitutionality of the conduct.”
Further, said the court, “when faced with a qualified immunity defense, a court should consider the specific scope and nature of a defendant’s qualified immunity claim. That is, a determination of whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition.”
http://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2011/05/qualified-immunity-from-civil-lawsuits.html
How did that line get started? The right to the redress of grievances is explicit in the Constitution.