Sylvia Gonzalez, a former Texas city council member who said her political opponents punished her activism by orchestrating her arrest on a bogus criminal charge, has agreed to settle the resulting federal civil rights lawsuit. On Tuesday night, the Castle Hills City Council approved the agreement, which includes a $500,000 payment and remedial First Amendment training for city officials.

The settlement was announced about 16 months after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Gonzalez v. Trevino , which revived Gonzalez's lawsuit and made it easier for victims of retaliatory arrests to prove their First Amendment claims. The agreement "closes one chapter for Castle Hills and opens a new chapter for free speech," said Anya Bidwell, the Institute for Justice attorney who argued Gonzalez's case

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