Law Commons^™

Redefining Workplace Speech After Janus, Theo A. Lesczynski

Northwestern University Law Review

We have a First Amendment right to criticize the government. But this freedom does not translate into a right to criticize one’s boss even if, as for millions of Americans, one’s boss happens to be a government employer. Public employee speech doctrine has long established wide latitude for public employers to supervise their workers. Employees must show at the threshold that their speech was on a matter of public concern and not an internal workplace matter. The Supreme Court’s pronouncements over the last decade in a related doctrinal area, however, have unsettled the line demarcating workplace speech. In its agency …