a First Amendment retaliation claim: (1) the plaintiff engaged in protected conduct; (2) an adverse action was taken against the plaintiff that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that conduct; and (3) the adverse action was motivated at least in part by the plaintiffs protected activity. Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 394 (6th Cir.1999). Plaintiff has established the first element of prima facie retaliation claim. The First Amendment protects the speech of a public employee if that speech comments on a matter of public concern and the speaker’s interest in the speech outweighs the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs. Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 1 4, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972) (<HOLDING>); Mt. Healthy City Board of Ed. v. Doyle, 429
holding that claims raised for the first time in an opposition to a motion for summary judgment are not properly before a court holding prior testimony was admissible where the witness who first testified during a suppression hearing was murdered after he testified where the defendant was represented by counsel who had extensively crossexamined the witness holding that the defendant community college board of trustees was immune from the plaintiffteachers  1983 suit for violation of his first amendment rights in relation to the discipline that the teacher received for responding to a students sexual harassment claim because the defendants could not have reasonably known that the discipline violated an established right holding that in order for there to be state debt in the constitutional sense one legislature in effect must obligate a future legislature to appropriate funds to discharge the debt created by the first legislature holding that the failure to rehire a teacher in the state college system who had testified before the texas legislature in opposition to a position taken by the regents was a violation of the first amendment