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Page Number: 65

10  JANUS v. STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

union  fees  alone,  from  the  usual  rules  governing  public 
employees’ speech.

“Time  and  again  our  cases  have  recognized  that  the
Government  has  a  much  freer  hand”  in  dealing  with  its
employees than with “citizens at large.”  NASA v. Nelson, 
562 U. S. 134, 148 (2011) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted).  The  government,  we  have  stated,  needs  to  run  “as
effectively and efficiently as possible.”  Engquist v. Oregon 
Dept.  of  Agriculture,  553  U. S.  591,  598  (2008)  (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted).  That  means  it  must  be  able, 
much as a private employer is, to manage its workforce as 
it thinks fit.  A public employee thus must submit to “cer-
tain  limitations  on  his  or  her  freedom.”    Garcetti  v.  Ce-
ballos, 547 U. S. 410, 418 (2006).  Government workers, of 
course, do not wholly “lose their constitutional rights when
they  accept  their  positions.”    Engquist,  553  U. S.,  at  600. 
But  under  our  precedent,  their  rights  often  yield  when
weighed “against the realities of the employment context.” 
Ibid.   If  it  were  otherwise—if  every  employment  decision
were  to  “bec[o]me  a  constitutional  matter”—“the  Govern-
ment could not function.”  NASA, 562 U. S., at 149 (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted).

Those  principles  apply  with  full  force  when  public 
employees’  expressive  rights  are  at  issue.    As  we  have  ex-
plained:  “Government  employers,  like  private  employers, 
need  a  significant  degree  of  control  over  their  employees’
words”  in  order  to  “efficient[ly]  provi[de]  public  services.” 
Garcetti, 547 U. S., at 418.  Again, significant control does
not mean absolute authority.  In particular, the Court has
guarded  against  government  efforts  to  “leverage  the  em-
ployment relationship” to shut down its employees’ speech
as private citizens.  Id., at 419.  But when the government 
imposes  speech  restrictions  relating  to  workplace  opera-
tions, of the kind a private employer also would, the Court 
reliably  upholds  them.    See,  e.g.,  id.,  at  426;  Connick  v. 
Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 154 (1983).