Fired Over Reagan Barb, Clerk Wins Job, Back Pay

HOUSTON —  A woman fired from her county job on the day President Reagan was shot because she said, “If they go for him again, I hope they get him,” will get back her job and more than $97,000 in back pay.

U.S. District Judge Norman Black ordered Harris County on Thursday to reinstate Ardith McPherson Jackson in her job at a constable’s office and give her back pay, with interest, to March 30, 1981.

Black said he will determine at a later date how much the county must pay the American Civil Liberties Union attorneys that represented Jackson.

Constable Walter Rankin fired Jackson, a clerk, the day Reagan was wounded by assailant John Hinckley because she said in a telephone conversation, “If they go for him again, I hope they get him.”

Jackson, 27, said she is pleased with the judge’s ruling and never threatened Reagan’s life.

“I just meant I didn’t like Reagan’s policies,” she said. “It didn’t mean I was going up there and shoot him or anything.”

Black earlier found Rankin had the authority to fire Jackson, but the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled last June that the dismissal violated Jackson’s First Amendment right of free speech.