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Garcetti v. Ceballos; First Amendment; Public Employees; Free Speech; United States Supreme Court; SCOTUS
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The Supreme Court's Worst Decision In Recent Years--Garcetti V. Ceballos, The Dred Scott Decision For Public Employees, David L. Hudson Jr.
The Supreme Court's Worst Decision In Recent Years--Garcetti V. Ceballos, The Dred Scott Decision For Public Employees, David L. Hudson Jr.
Law Faculty Scholarship
The United States Supreme Court decision of Garcetti v. Ceballos deserves its rightful place in the Court’s hall of shame. In Garcetti, the Court issued a decision that serves as a Dred Scott-type ruling for public employees, diminishing their free speech rights to an unacceptable level. The Court created a categorical rule that public employees have no free speech rights when engaged in official, job-related speech.
Under Garcetti, it does not matter how valuable an employee’s speech is, how much corruption that speech exposes, or whether the speech informs the public regarding an important issue. Instead, the five-justice majority focused …