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September 23, 2015

A public employee’s First Amendment right of free speech involving matters of public concern is subject to the Pickering Balancing Test


A public employee’s First Amendment right of free speech involving matters of public concern is subject to the Pickering Balancing Test
Munroe v Central Bucks School District, United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, Docket #14-3509

It is well settled that “Public employees do not surrender all of their First Amendment rights merely because of their employment status. Thus a public employer may not discharge an employee on a basis that infringes that employee's constitutionally protected interest in freedom of speech." As the United States Supreme Court commented in Pickering v Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563* “Free and unhindered debate on matters of public importance constitutes a core value of the First Amendment.”

When the Central Bucks School District, a school district in Pennsylvania [Respondent] terminated Natalie Monroe [Teacher] from her teaching position, she sued the District alleging “First Amendment retaliation.” Teacher contended that her dismissal resulted from her making a number of derogatory comments about her own students on her personal Internet blog. In its defense, one Respondent witness testified that Teacher’s blog entries concerning the school and her students that “To say it was a disruption to the learning environment is an understatement.”

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted the Respondent’s motion for summary judgment, holding that in its opinion Respondent had not violate Teacher’s constitutional right to free expression based on its determination that “as a matter of law that [Teacher’s] comments do not merit protection under the balancing test established by [Pickering and thus] ”it believed it was unnecessary to reach the question of whether [Teacher’s] speech directly caused her termination.”

Teacher appealed but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, sustained the district court’s ruling, holding that applying the Pickering balancing test, “[Teacher's] speech did not rise to the level of constitutionally protected expression.”

The court said that "the [public employer] has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general" and "the government as employer" possesses "far broader powers than does the government as sovereign."

The Circuit Court’s decision pointed out that should a person enter government service, he or she by necessity must accept certain limitations on his or her freedom as government employers, like their private counterparts, still "need a significant degree of control over their employees' words and actions; without it, there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services."

Thus, said the Circuit Court, a public employer may impose speech restrictions that are necessary for efficient and effective operations but where employees are speaking as citizens about matters of public concern, they face only those speech restrictions that are necessary for their employers to operate efficiently and effectively. Accordingly, “speech that relates solely to mundane employment grievances does not implicate a matter of public concern.”

As to Teacher’s speech, the Circuit Court said that assuming that her speech “implicated a matter of public concern, this does not mean that her speech constituted speech protected by the First Amendment.” Further, said the court, “even if [Teacher's] speech was a matter of public concern, it was not constitutionally protected because the Pickering balancing test weighed in favor of [Respondent].”

* A summary of Pickering, “Essentials of the "Pickering Balancing Test” is posted on NYPPL at http://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2010/01/essentials-of-pickering-balancing-test.html

The decision is posted on the Internet at:

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