improper motivation. The evidence must be “sufficient to warrant the inference that the protected speech was a substantial motivating factor in the adverse employment action, that is to say, the adverse employment action would not have been taken absent the employee’s protected speech.” Mount Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). “[A] plaintiff can prove First Amendment retaliation even if the measures taken by [the defendants] were otherwise justified.” Beechwood Restorative Care Ctr. v. Leeds, 436 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir.2006). Causation can be established either indirectly by means of circumstantial evidence, for example, by showing that the protected activity was followed by adverse treatme 769 (2d Cir.1998) (<HOLDING>); Catabro v. Nassati Univ. Med. Ctr., 424
holding that verbal notice was sufficient holding that threemonth suspension for exceeding the statutorily permissible number of points would continue until individual complied with statutory requirements of paying restoration fee and providing proof of insurance holding that where evidence was sufficient for attempted murder it was necessarily sufficient for aggravated assault which is a lesser included offense holding that evidence was sufficient for jury to determine date employment was to begin holding that a threemonth interval was sufficient