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Page Number: 13.0

8  JANUS v. STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES 

Opinion of the Court 

freedom  of  speech.  We  have  held  time  and  again  that 
freedom of speech “includes both the right to speak freely 
and  the  right  to  refrain  from  speaking  at  all.”    Wooley  v. 
Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 714 (1977); see Riley v. National 
Federation  of  Blind  of N.  C.,  Inc., 487  U. S.  781,  796–797 
(1988);  Harper  &  Row,  Publishers,  Inc.  v.  Nation  Enter-
prises,  471  U. S.  539,  559  (1985);  Miami  Herald  Publish-
ing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U. S. 241, 256–257 (1974); accord, 
Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Public Util. Comm’n of Cal., 475 
U. S.  1,  9  (1986)  (plurality  opinion).  The  right  to  eschew
association  for  expressive  purposes  is  likewise  protected. 
Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 623 (1984) 
(“Freedom  of  association . . . plainly  presupposes  a  free­
dom  not  to  associate”);  see  Pacific  Gas  &  Elec.,  supra,  at 
12  (“[F]orced  associations  that  burden  protected  speech
are impermissible”).  As Justice Jackson memorably put it:
“If  there  is  any  fixed  star  in  our  constitutional  constella­
tion, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what 
shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other 
matters  of  opinion  or  force  citizens  to  confess  by  word  or 
act  their  faith  therein.”  West  Virginia  Bd.  of  Ed.  v.  Bar-
nette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943) (emphasis added).

Compelling individuals to mouth support for views they
find  objectionable  violates  that  cardinal  constitutional
command, and in most contexts, any such effort would be
universally  condemned.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  the
State of Illinois required all residents to sign a document 
expressing  support  for  a  particular  set  of  positions  on 
controversial public issues—say, the platform of one of the
major political parties.  No one, we trust, would seriously
argue that the First Amendment permits this. 

Perhaps because such compulsion so plainly violates the 
Constitution,  most  of  our  free  speech  cases  have  involved 
restrictions on what can be said, rather than laws compel­
ling speech.  But measures compelling speech are at least 
as threatening.