*

 After an examination of the briefs and the record, we have concluded that

oral argument is unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the

record. Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted September 20, 2007*

Decided September 24, 2007

Before

 Hon. ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

 Hon. DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

 Hon. ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 07-1422

WILLIE C. SIMPSON,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

MANUEL JOSEPH, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States 

District Court for the 

Eastern District of Wisconsin

No. 06-C-200

J.P. Stadtmueller,

Judge.

O R D E R

Wisconsin inmate Willie Simpson claims to have a right to privacy that was

violated when a nurse and physician at the Racine Correctional Institution

discussed sensitive medical information with him in the presence of guards. The

district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, reasoning that

legitimate security concerns outweighed any privacy interest and justified a prison

policy requiring guards to be present. We agree and affirm the judgment.

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance 

with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 07-1422 Page 2

The facts are not in dispute. Simpson, who has since been transferred to a

different prison, is a violent and disruptive inmate who spent almost his entire stay

at Racine in punitive segregation in the Waukesha Segregation Unit. Written

security policies at Racine require that segregation inmates be placed in restraints

and accompanied by at least one guard any time they are out of their cells. See

Waukesha Segregation Unit Handbook, Movement Procedure (Jan. 2004); Racine

Corr. Inst. Sec. Procedure No. 2015 (Feb. 15, 2006). At Simpson’s medical

appointments, therefore, a guard was present in the room and could overhear

conversations between Simpson and the medical staff. Twice in August 2005 a staff

member mentioned in front of the attending guard that Simpson is HIV-positive. 

The first time, when Simpson was with a nurse, he asked the guard to leave the

room and watch through a window in the door, which the guard did. The next time,

when Simpson was with a physician, a different guard refused to leave because of

the Racine security policies. A guard would face discipline for disclosing medical

information overheard while escorting an inmate, and in this case neither guard

shared the information with anyone. 

Simpson sued the nurse and physician, the security director at Racine, and

several administrators who were not involved in the underlying events; indeed, all

of the defendants except the two medical workers learned that Simpson is HIVpositive only when they processed his prison grievances or were served with his

lawsuit. The parties stipulated that Simpson’s right-to-privacy claim “concerns only

dissemination and disclosure of medical information related to his HIV-positive

condition,” and at summary judgment the district court concluded that a

segregation inmate has a constitutional right to privacy that is broad enough to

encompass concealing his HIV-positive status from guards. The court also assumed

that, if a member of the prison medical staff discusses a segregation inmate’s HIVpositive status in front of a prison guard accompanying the inmate, a “disclosure”

has occurred. Even if we accept both premises, however, we agree with the district

court that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment.

Prison administrators may restrict the constitutional rights of inmates

through regulations that are “‘reasonably related to legitimate penological

interests.’” Beard v. Banks, 126 S. Ct. 2572, 2578 (2006) (quoting Turner v. Safley,

482 U.S. 78, 87 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Three factors are

relevant in evaluating regulations like the security policies at Racine: (1) whether

the regulation is rationally related to a legitimate government objective, (2) the

impact that accommodating the asserted right will have on the guards or prison

staff or resources, and (3) whether readily available alternatives suggest that the

regulation may be unreasonable. Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 224-25

(1990) (analyzing prisoners’ constitutional right to reject medical treatment);

Russell v. Richards, 384 F.3d 444, 447-48 (7th Cir. 2004) (same). 
No. 07-1422 Page 3

The defendants submitted unchallenged affidavits detailing the prison

administrators’ interests in prison security and protecting medical staff from

potentially dangerous segregation inmates like Simpson. Simpson concedes, as he

must, that those are legitimate penological goals, see Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S.

126, 133 (2003) (describing “internal security” as “perhaps the most legitimate of

penological goals”); Harper, 494 U.S. at 225 (noting prison administrators’ “interest

in ensuring the safety of prison staffs and administrative personnel”), but he

contends that the policies requiring a guard to accompany segregation inmates

outside their cells are not rationally connected to that interest because the prison

has not asserted that the guards themselves needed to know his HIV-positive status

for their own safety. Simpson, though, misses the point. Requiring a guard to

accompany segregation inmates directly addresses the interests the prison has

asserted—institutional security and protecting the medical personnel from

segregation inmates. See Kaufman v. McCaughtry, 419 F.3d 678, 683 (7th Cir.

2005) (upholding prison denial of request for prisoner study group as rationally

related to prison interest in maintaining institutional security); Russell, 384 F.3d at

448 (holding that prison policy requiring inmates to delouse upon entering prison

was logically related to asserted prison goal of protecting inmates and personnel

from exposure to lice). 

As for the second factor, accommodating Simpson’s asserted constitutional

right to conceal his HIV-positive status would require that the attending guard wait

outside the examination room during an inmate’s medical appointments. The

defendants submitted competent evidence, through the affidavit of Racine’s security

director, that a guard escort could both deter segregation inmates from attacking

medical personnel and immediately react to any such attack, while a guard

standing outside the door would be hard-pressed to do either. Simpson disagreed,

but he provided no evidence (on top of his disagreement) to put the issue in dispute. 

Finally, Simpson proposes an alternative to the prison’s policies—posting a

guard outside the examination room door to observe the appointment through a

window in the door—but, given the defendants’ unrefuted evidence that posting a

guard outside the examination door would put the safety of the medical personnel

at risk, his proposed alternative imposes an impermissible burden on the legitimate

penological interests of security and safety. See Russell, 384 F.3d at 449 (noting

that accommodating prisoner’s asserted right must not impose a greater than de

minimis cost on legitimate penological interest). We are “particularly deferential”

to prison administrators’ judgment that a change in policy would impair the

prison’s ability to protect those within its bounds, see Overton, 539 U.S. at 135, and

under these facts we cannot say that the Racine policies are not rationally related to

the legitimate goal of protecting the prison’s medical staff. 

AFFIRMED.