The widow of Shawn McBreairty, a conservative activist who died in June after engaging in numerous legal battles over transgender-inclusive policies statewide, will continue his lawsuit against the Brewer School Department, court records show.

McBreairty sued the school department in February, after officials asked him to take down a post he made on an online news blog, which was titled “Girls’ Bathrooms Are Not ‘Safe Spaces’ When Males Are Present.” That post included a photo, attributed to an anonymous source, of students in a Brewer High School women’s restroom, with a caption claiming one of them was a male student.

The blog post also singled out Superintendent Gregg Palmer, Brewer High School Principal Brent Slowiskowki and English teacher Michelle MacDonald. Those three were also named in the complaint McBreairty filed against the school.

Shortly after McBreairty published the article, lawyers for the school demanded that he take it down, arguing, in part, that publishing the student’s photograph was an illegal violation of privacy under Maine law. McBreairty took the article down but claimed in his lawsuit that being forced to do so violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

McBreairty died by suicide in June.

Now, his widow, Patricia McBreairty, is taking over as the suit’s plaintiff, according to records filed Monday with the U.S. District Court of Maine.

Like her husband, Patricia McBreairty aims to republish the article, as well as a “threatening demand” district officials made in an email.

She filed an updated motion for preliminary injunction Monday, aiming to bar the school district from “taking any action to try to apply school policies” to her and requesting the opportunity to make oral arguments.

Marc J. Randazza, an attorney representing Patricia McBreairty, said the lawsuit aims to protect the rights of individuals and agencies who wish to publish materials that were lawfully made, “no matter who doesn’t like that.”

“The Brewer school system seems to believe that a photograph that it doesn’t like can’t be published,” Randazza said on a Monday night phone call. “The case is relatively simple. The government doesn’t get to threaten criminal or civil sanctions against a citizen because they don’t like what the citizen wrote.”

Palmer, Slowiskowki and MacDonald, the school officials and teacher, did not reply to emailed questions about their next steps or reaction to the lawsuit’s continuation.

Randazza said he believed the case has about a 50/50 shot of success in a trial court, but he was “optimistic that when we get to the appellate court, the First Amendment will be upheld.”

Patricia McBreairty did not reply to a voicemail asking what she hopes to see moving forward or when she decided to take over her husband’s lawsuit.

Attorneys for Patricia McBreairty, including Randazza, filed a motion to substitute her as the lawsuit’s plaintiff in August, acting as the “personal representative of the Estate of Shawn McBreairty.” In the latest court filings, she is listed as plaintiff.

But Randazza said naming Patricia McBreairty as plaintiff was strictly a procedural move and does not impact its broader goals. He called inquiries about the party substitution “stupid questions about things that have nothing to really do with the case.”

He said the legal entity of Shawn McBreairty’s estate is continuing with the lawsuit.

“So, Patricia is not a party to the case. It is the estate,” Randazza said. “She’s only being there as the fact that you need a human being to sign on behalf of the estate.”