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Public Employee Speech And The Privatization Of The First Amendment, Adam Shinar

Adam Shinar

Constitutional protection of public employee speech has been declining for the past forty years, yet the reason for the decline has remained elusive. This Article puts forward a novel theory situating public employee speech in larger structural transformations in governmental organization. It identifies a “public/private convergence,” the main feature of which is that public officials are increasingly viewed as private employees, resulting in a significant erosion of their free speech rights. This erosion is exacerbated by rising levels of privatization and civil service reforms exhibiting the same mode of thought, that public employees are no different from private employees. These …