Law Commons^™

Checking The Government’S Deception Through Public Employee Speech, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government's Control Of Its Workers' Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Publications

This Article identifies a key doctrinal shift in courts' treatment of public employees' First Amendment claims--a shift that imperils the public's interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental discipline of public employee speech on matters of public interest only when such speech undermined the government employer's interest in efficiently providing public services. In contrast, courts now increasingly focus on--and defer to--government's claim to control its workers' expression to protect its own speech.

More specifically, courts increasingly permit government …

Government Workers And Government Speech, Helen Norton

Publications

This essay, to be published in the First Amendment Law Review's forthcoming symposium issue on Public Citizens, Public Servants: Free Speech in the Post-Garcetti Workplace, critiques the Supreme Court's decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos as reflecting a distorted understanding of government speech that overstates government's own expressive interests while undermining the public's interest in transparent government.

In Garcetti, the Court held that the First Amendment does not protect public employees' speech made "pursuant to their official duties," concluding that a government employer should remain free to exercise "employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created." …

Unconstitutional Conditions Upon Public Employment: New Departures In The Protection Of First Amendment Rights, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.