Mit- chell does not permit them to appeal from the denial of a motion they did not need to make in the first place, and their appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Chairman Ho, President Lazerson, and the three mem- bers of the grievance board are entitled to appeal. Defendants reply that no case has ever characterized, as a subject of public concern, one employee's accusations of another's misconduct, made wholly within an employer's administrative structure. They contend that the right Feld- man asserted therefore has not been established with the necessary specificity. The principle that a public employee may not be dis- charged or disciplined for speech protected by the first amendment is qualified.
Teachers are acutely aware of both sides of the balance.
They speak and write for a living and are eager to pro- tect both public and private interests in freedom to stake out controversial positions. Yet they also evaluate speech for a living and are eager to protect both public and pri- vate interests in the ability to judge the speech of others and react adversely to some. They grade their students' papers and performance in class. They edit journals, which reject scholarly papers of poor quality. They evaluate their colleagues' academic writing, and they deny continuing employment to professors whose speech does not meet their institution's standards of quality.