Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4
that when public employees make statements as part of their official
duties, those statements are not protected free speech. The case
involved Richard Ceballos, a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles
County who claimed his supervisors retaliated against him for sending a
memo that said an affidavit police used to obtain a critical search
warrant was inaccurate. Ceballos argued that his memo was protected
free speech.
But
the high court found that free speech protections didn’t apply because
Ceballos was acting within his official duties and not as a private
citizen on a matter of public concern when he wrote the memo. According
to the court, public employees who make statements as part of their
official duties fall outside of the protection of the First Amendment.
In particular, “When public employees make statements pursuant to their
official duties, they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment
purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications
from employer discipline.”
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The court went on to explain that
without such control over “its employees’ words and actions, a
government employer would have little chance to provide public services
efficiently. Thus, a government entity has broader discretion to
restrict speech when it acts in its employer role, but the restrictions
it imposes must be directed at speech that has some potential to affect
its operations.”
We’ll have full details on the impact of this ruling in the next issue of the California Employer Advisor.
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