American LibrariesSearch American Libraries  |
||
Site Navigation
Left Sidebar ItemsOnline Features
|
||
Supreme Court Sends Mixed Signals on Public Employees’ SpeechIn a 5–4 ruling on the Garcetti v. Ceballos case, the Supreme Court asserted May 30 that the Constitution does not necessarily protect government employees from retaliation by their supervisors for anything they might say in the course of their employment. The case involved a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles who claimed he was unconstitutionally demoted and reassigned for speaking out to his supervisor about problems with an impending prosecution, the New York Times reported May 31.Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, “[W]hen public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.” He added that free-speech protections would be in effect if the employees “participat[ed] in public debate.” However, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissenting opinion, “It is senseless to let constitutional protection for exactly the same words hinge on whether they fall within a job description. . . . The notion that there is a categorical difference between speaking as a citizen and speaking in the course of one’s employment is quite wrong.” The decision sidestepped the issue of whether the standard applied to public employees in an academic setting. University of Virginia Law Professor Robert M. O’Neil said in the May 31 Inside Higher Education, “Once you have drawn this kind of distinction, which ostensibly runs across the whole gamut of a public employee’s speech, and having merely hinted that academic speakers and therefore academic freedom may somehow be different, creates only a slim reed on which to hang a public university professor’s desire to speak out.” Posted June 2, 2006. |
Right Sidebar
|
|
