Case Name: Joanne ALINOVI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. WORCESTER SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants, Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1985-06-28
Citations: 766 F.2d 660
Docket Number: No. 84-1172
Parties: Joanne ALINOVI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. WORCESTER SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 766
Pages: 660–676

Head Matter:
Joanne ALINOVI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. WORCESTER SCHOOL COMMITTEE, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
No. 84-1172.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
Argued Aug. 18, 1984.
June 28, 1985.
Bownes, Circuit Judge, filed dissenting opinion.
Darragh K. Kasakoff, Worcester, Mass., with whom Seder & Chandler, Worcester, Mass., was on brief, for plaintiff, appellant.
James A. Toomey, Braintree, Mass., with whom Murphy, Lamere & Murphy, Brain-tree, Mass., was on brief, for defendants, appellees.
Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, BOWNES, Circuit Judge, and PEREZGIMENEZ, District Judge.
Of The District of Puerto Rico, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
PEREZ-GIMENEZ, District Judge.
Joanne Alino vi, a teacher at Midland Street School, in Worcester, Massachusetts, brought this action against the Worcester School Committee ("School Committee"), its members, and the Superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools to redress alleged deprivations of her free speech and privacy rights as guaranteed to her by the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She asserted a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming deprivations of her constitutional rights under color of state law and sought declaratory, injunc-tive, and other equitable relief and damages. Jurisdiction was invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 1343.
In essence, Alinovi claimed, first, that defendants violated her Fourth Amendment privacy right when they disciplined her for refusing to give a copy of a paper she had written about a student in her class to her school principal, and second, that her First Amendment right to free speech was violated when defendants disciplined her for posting in her classroom on Parents' Night certain letters she had received from the administration concerning her refusal to give the term paper to the principal.
After a jury-waived trial, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts found that defendants did not violate either Alinovi's Fourth Amendment privacy right or her First Amendment free speech right, and ordered that judgment be entered in favor of defendants.
For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Joanne Alinovi has been a tenured public school teacher in Worcester since 1971. Between September 1971 and May 1980 she taught fourth grade at Midland Street School. Since September 1978, the Principal at Midland Street School has been William Bombard.
The Legislature of Massachusetts has established a comprehensive statutory scheme for the provision of special education services to residents of the State. See, Mass.G.L. c. 71B. Pursuant to the statutory scheme, the school committee of each school district in Massachusetts must identify those children in its schools who have special needs, i.e., emotional or physical problems that prevent a child from progressing effectively in a regular school program. The school committee must then evaluate the child's needs and develop a program of special education to meet those needs. At any time during the year a parent, a teacher, or a principal may initiate testing, evaluation and a conference among the classroom teacher, principal, parents, and other school professionals to develop a special program for the child. This is called a core evaluation.
During the 1978-79 school year, Alinovi had four special needs students in her class. One of her special needs students that year was Chris. In the fall of 1978, Principal Bombard, Alinovi, Chris's mother, the school psychologist and the special education teacher developed a program for Chris which required him to attend two half-hour sessions weekly outside the regular classroom with a special needs teacher and to periodically visit the school adjustment counselor for counseling.
During the fall of 1978 and January 1979, Alinovi had a lot of trouble with Chris in the classroom. Chris was hyperactive, would fight with other students, melted crayons on the radiator, and once threatened to jump out of a window. On another occasion Chris held a knife to his throat. Alinovi spoke with Principal Bombard about her problems with Chris, but the Principal told her that he was too busy to deal with Chris's problems. Alinovi talked to other people about Chris, including Mr. Generelli, the supervisor of special edu cation at Midland Street School. After speaking to Mr. Generelli, Alinovi decided to request a re-evaluation for Chris to modify his special needs program; and she did so on February 1979.
During March and April of 1979, Alinovi took on her own time an extra credit evening course on "Mental Health in Education" at Worcester State College. To fulfill her course's term paper requirement, she wrote a ease study of Chris. The term paper contained some criticism of Bombard's handling of Chris and of his dealing with Alinovi. However, other than referring to Chris by his first name only, the paper did not identify any person or place by name. When Alinovi gave the paper to her professor for grading, she expected that the paper would be discussed and would be an educational benefit to the professor. Although she testified during trial that she did not expect that the paper would be given to anyone in the Worcester public school system, she took no steps to insure that her professor did not copy the paper, and she imposed no conditions to maintain it as a private or confidential document.
On May 31, 1979, Alinovi, Bombard, Chris's parents, Mr. Generelli and other school professionals met at Midland to reevaluate Chris's special needs program. In preparation for this meeting, each professional, including Alinovi, had prepared a written report on Chris's progress, which he or she had given in advance to the other participants and which formed part of Chris's official record. Alinovi also brought her term paper with her to the conference. Believing that the term paper contained helpful details about Chris and that Mr. Generelli, as conference chairman, was the person ultimately responsible for approving an educational plan for Chris after the meeting, Alinovi gave him the term paper before the meeting started. Mr. Generelli placed the term paper in his briefcase and never looked at it. Alinovi did not read from or refer to the paper during the conference. At the end of the conference, Chris's parents decided to keep Chris's current educational program and signed a form to that effect. Realizing that Mr. Generelli would not need her term paper after all, Alinovi got the paper back from him.
The next day, June 1, 1979, the principal stopped Alinovi in the school corridor and asked to see her term paper. Because she did not want Bombard to read her criticism of him and because she felt it was her private paper, Alinovi refused to give it to him arid told him that he already had all the relevant information about Chris. Thomas Friend, who at the time of these events was the Acting Supervisor of Elementary Schools, testified that he and other administration officials thought that Ali-novi's case study was part of Chris's official file. Bombard, as principal of the school and as the one responsible for reviewing all of Chris's evaluation materials, felt duty-bound to see the paper.
Subsequently, on June 13, 1979, Alinovi received a letter from Thomas Friend asking her to meet with him and Bombard on June 19 to discuss her refusal to turn over her term paper. The letter stated that the meeting could result in disciplinary action against her. Alinovi attended the meeting accompanied by her lawyer, and the four discussed why she had refused to turn over her paper. Both Mr. Friend and Mr. Bombard told Alinovi that they considered her refusal to turn over her paper as insubordination. Alinovi, knowing that insubordination would be grounds for firing a tenured teacher, allowed her attorney to give the case study to the administration officials. At the end of the meeting, Friend told Alinovi that he would get back to her in about a week's time regarding any possible disciplinary action. However, the matter was not resolved within a week, and on June 28, 1979, the administration wrote Alinovi informing her that they were postponing any further meetings until the fall. Alinovi spent her summer vacation in Maine, under a good deal of stress because she was worried about what action the administration would take against her. During the summer, Alinovi sought psychological counselling.
Upon her return to school in September 1979, Alinovi received no word from the administration until October 3, when she got another letter informing her of a meeting to be held on October 11 with Superintendent Connor, Assistant Superintendent David St. John, Mr. Friend and Principal Bombard. This letter again mentioned the possibility of disciplinary action against Ali-novi. The meeting was held but did not bring a resolution to Alinovi's problem.
On November 14, 1979, the school held a Parents' Night. The notice that went out to the parents describing the event stated that the teachers would speak to the parents about school programs and what the teachers expected from their students. Alinovi felt that Parents' Night would be a good opportunity to bring to the parents' attention the problem she was having with the school administration and the fact that it was not getting resolved. Accordingly, she posted on her classroom bulletin board, next to the parents' sign-up sheet, the three letters she had received from the administration. She then directed the parents to the sign-up sheets. On one of the letters, she wrote: "the meeting was held and I have received no communications regarding the matter since. So far this has cost me $60.00 in psychological counseling fees and hundreds of dollars in attorney's fees." During the question-and-answer period following Alinovi's presentation to the parents, two out of seventeen questions concerned the posted letters. One parent asked what the letters were about and Ali-novi told him that he would have to contact the writers since she could not say anything more about them. Another parent asked whether the problem was affecting her teaching, to which Alinovi responded affirmatively because in her free time she thought about the problem in the letters instead of thinking of ways to improve her teaching. Apparently, one parent could not understand why the letters had been posted and complained to the President of the Parents' Club, who in turn spoke to Principal Bombard.
At trial, Alinovi testified that her purpose in posting the letters was to bring about a resolution of her disciplinary problem and to inform the parents of the effect the administration's inaction was having on her teaching. However, the district court entered a finding to the effect that Alinovi was actually trying to, and did, accomplish only the former objective. The court also found that Alinovi simply wanted to get the parents interested in her problem hoping that they would approach the administration, which would then be embarrased and would act on Alinovi's disciplinary matter.
On November 30, 1979, Alinovi received a letter from Superintendent Connor, in which he found Alinovi insubordinate for her refusal to give her term paper to the principal. The letter was to remain in her personnel file permanently. After two more meetings with the administration, on December 17, 1979, and March 7, 1980, Superintendent Connor suspended Alinovi without pay for two days because of the November 14, 1979, posting incident, which he described as "conduct unbecoming a teacher". The Superintendent also informed Alinovi that he would recommend to the School Committee that she be invol untarily transferred from the fourth grade at Midland to a LAMP position for the remainder of the 1979-80 school year, a position which involves teaching remedial math to small groups.
On May 1, 1980, the Worcester School Committee voted to involuntarily transfer Alinovi to the Curriculum Center, where she stayed until the end of the school year in June 1980. Alinovi's first assignment there was to outline fifty textbooks. This task took her about a week, after which she read most of the time, having nothing else to do. Alinovi was isolated at the Curriculum Center, and the stress she was under caused her to seek psychiatric counseling during May and June 1980.
In September 1980, Alinovi reported back to the Curriculum Center. During the 1980-81 school year, the administration transferred her back and forth between the Center and short-term substitute teaching positions six times. Due to the stress of the transfers, Alinovi had to take 40 days sick leave and to seek counseling several times during the year. At the end of the 1980-81 school year, Alinovi requested and received a year's unpaid leave of absence. Since she started to feel better emotionally during this year, Alinovi decided to return to teaching on the fall of 1982. From that time until the present, she has taught at the Chandler Elementary School in the Worcester System. She has sought no further counseling since she returned to work and seems happy with her present teaching position.
On June 25, 1980, Alinovi filed the present action in the federal district court alleging that defendants' conduct had deprived her of her constitutional rights. First, she claimed that she had a Fourth Amendment privacy interest in her case study about Chris and that defendants infringed her Fourth Amendment rights when they disciplined her for refusing to give her term paper to the Principal of her school. Second, she claimed that the First Amendment protected her right to post the letters from the administration at Parents'
Night, and that defendants could not discipline her for posting said letters.
The district court, in an unpublished opinion, denied Alinovi relief, reaching the following conclusions: 1) that after Alinovi brought her term paper to Chris's core evaluation meeting on May 31, 1979, she could no longer claim an expectation of privacy in that paper; 2) that since plaintiff Alinovi had no Fourth Amendment privacy interest in her paper, any disciplinary action that resulted from her refusal to turn over the paper did not violate her constitutional rights; and 3) that since Alinovi's posting of the administration letters on Parents' Night was not speech on a matter of public concern, the defendants did not have to justify to the court any employment decisions they made in reaction to the posting incident. This appeal followed.
II. FOURTH AMENDMENT CLAIM
On appeal, Alinovi renews her argument that she had a privacy interest in her term paper and that consequently she had a Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures of her private papers. She further argues that even if she had initially consented to a "search or seizure" of her private paper, she subsequently withdrew said consent and reinvoked her Fourth Amendment right. We disagree with both of these contentions.
We note initially that in referring to the alleged invasion of privacy by the school officials, Alinovi sometimes calls it a "search" and other times a "seizure". It is thus unclear whether she is claiming a Fourth Amendment violation due to an unreasonable "search" or an unreasonable "seizure". The Supreme Court has defined these terms as follows: "[a] 'search' occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed. A 'seizure' of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interest in that property." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 1656, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). However, regardless of how Alinovi chooses to charac terize the alleged intrusion of her privacy— i.e., whether her paper was "searched" or "seized" — we believe that the crux of this case lies in determining whether Alinovi can claim a reasonable expectation of privacy in her term paper. Depending upon our answer to this question, we will be able to tell whether there was a violation of the Fourth Amendment in this case.
The first clause of the Fourth Amendment guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Supreme Court has emphasized that the primary object of this amendment is to "safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by government officials." Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1730, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967). Moreover, the Court has observed that "[i]f the government intrudes on a person's property, the privacy interest suffers whether the government's motivation is to investigate violations of criminal law or breaches of other statutory or regulatory standards." Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 312-313, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 1820-1821, 56 L.Ed.2d 305 (1978). Consistent with these principles, the Supreme Court has extended Fourth Amendment protection beyond the "paradigmatic entry" into a house by police officers in search of criminal evidence to civil investigations of business premises. Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 504, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 1947, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978). Accordingly, the Fourth Amendment has been held applicable to activities of civil as well as criminal authorities. See, e.g., Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., supra; Camara v. Municipal Court, supra. See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967).
Furthermore, it is now beyond dispute that the Fourth Amendment, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers. New Jersey v. T.L.O., — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 733, 739, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985) (citing Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961); Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960); Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949)). Equally indisputable after T.L.O., is the proposition that the Fourth Amendment applies to searches of students conducted by public school officials. 105 S.Ct. at 739-41. Just as students are protected by the Fourth Amendment, teachers are also entitled to the amendment's protection against unreasonable searches by school officials. See, Gillard v. Schmidt, 579 F.2d 825, 828 (3d Cir.1978) (public school guidance counselor alleging a search of his desk by a school board member properly alleged a violation of the Fourth Amendment). However, in assessing the reasonableness of a job-related search or seizure by a supervisor relative to a government employee, a court will take into account the supervisor's legitimate oversight responsibilities and the special duties that may be owed by the employee by virtue of his employment. The employee's protected privacy interest may be less in such circumstances.
At bottom, "[w]hether the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures has been violated depends on whether the person asserting a Fourth Amendment violation had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched or the thing seized." United States v. Thornley, 707 F.2d 622, 624 (1st Cir.1983) (citing United States v. Hershenow, 680 F.2d 847, 855 (1st Cir.1982)). See also, Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 430, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978) (discussing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967)). Thus, given the facts here, the basic question is whether Alinovi had a reasonable expectation of privacy in her term paper.
In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979), the Supreme Court, adopting Justice Harlan's statement of the rule in his concurrence in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. at 360-62, 88 S.Ct. at 516-517, announced a two-step test for determining whether a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. The first question is:
whether the individual, by his conduct, has "exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy", 389 U.S., at 361 [88 S.Ct. at 516] — whether, in the words of the Katz majority, the individual has shown that "he seeks to preserve [something] as private." Id., at 351 [88 S.Ct. at 511]. The second question is whether the individual's subjective expectation of privacy is "one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable,' " Id., at 361 [88 S.Ct. at 516] — whether, in the words of the Katz majority, the individual's expectation, viewed objectively, is "justifiable" under the circumstances. Id., at 353 [88 S.Ct. at 512]. See, Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. at 143-144 n. 12 [99 S.Ct. at 430-431 n. 12] (concurring opinion); United States v. White, 401 U.S. [745], at 752 [91 S.Ct. at 1126] (plurality opinion).
442 U.S., at 740-41, 99 S.Ct. at 2580-2581 (footnote omitted). See also, United States v. Thornley, supra; United States v. Hershenow, supra. Applying this test to the case at bar, we must reject, as did the district court, Alinovi's claim to Fourth Amendment protection. The district court, trying the case without a jury, found that Alinovi did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in her term paper after she brought it to Chris's core evaluation meeting on May 31, 1979. We agree with this conclusion, but would add that given the facts of this case, we do not see how Alino-vi could have claimed a reasonable expectation of privacy in her paper even before she brought it to the May 1979 meeting and gave it to Generelli.
Alinovi fails on both scores of the test set forth in Smith v. Maryland. First, Alinovi does not meet the subjective expectation test since we cannot say that she showed any interest in preserving her paper as private. It is true that Alinovi did not want to give her paper to Principal Bombard because it contained criticism of his handling of Chris's situation. However, it is no less true that prior to refusing to give her paper to the principal, she had already given it to her college professor for grading and had voluntarily offered it to Mr. Generelli, a school official, to aid him in his decision-making process regarding Chris's educational program. In fact, when Alinovi gave the paper to her professor, she expected that the paper would be discussed in class and would be an educational benefit to the professor. Moreover, although she testified that she did not expect her professor would give the paper to anyone in the Worcester school system, she took no steps to insure that the professor not copy the paper and imposed no conditions to maintain it as a private or confidential document. And, as if this were not enough to demonstrate Alinovi's lack of an expectation of privacy, she voluntarily offered her paper to the school official responsible for prescribing Chris's educational program, in full view of the other persons responsible for Chris's education. Although she testified that she did not expect Generelli to show her paper to the principal, she recognized that she had no way of knowing whether Generelli would reveal the contents of her paper to Bombard or not. We agree with the district court's conclusion that Alinovi must have obviously expected that someone in the administration would use the information in her term paper. In other words, once Alinovi made the contents of her paper known to Generelli, particularly that it contained helpful information regarding Chris, she could have reasonably anticipated that it would be subject to inspection by concerned school officials, especially in light of the requirement imposed on school authorities by Mass G.L. c. 71B to oversee all aspects of special needs education. Thus, we fail to see how, after giving her paper to her professor and to Generelli, she can still be said to have retained an expectation of privacy in said paper. Although understandably she was hesitant to show her paper to Principal Bombard, she certainly did nothing to preserve it as private, and thus we conclude that Alinovi did not, by her conduct, exhibit a subjective expectation of privacy.
Second, even assuming arguendo that Alinovi did harbor some subjective expectation that her paper would remain private, this expectation is not "one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable'." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516. The case study in issue related to a student with whom Alinovi had come into contact as part of her official teaching duties at the school and for whose special needs program both she and Principal Bombard had direct, job-related responsibilities. Alinovi had clearly indicated that she thought her paper was relevant to the evaluation of Chris's special needs program by handing the paper to Generelli in Principal Bombard's presence at the official school meeting dealing with Chris's program. Given Bombard's supervisory responsibilities, it was understandable that he should insist that a teacher on his staff divulge to him the information and views she had compiled regarding Chris's evaluation. See note 6, supra. In Katz, the Supreme Court expressly held that "what a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." Id. 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511 (emphasis added). Moreover, the court "consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties." Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. at 743-44, 99 S.Ct. at 2581-2582. See, e.g., United States v. Jacobsen, 104 S.Ct. at 1658; United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 442-43, 96 S.Ct. 1619, 1623-1624, 48 L.Ed.2d 71 (1976); Couch v. United States, 409 U.S. 322, 335-36, 93 S.Ct. 611, 619-620, 34 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973); United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745, 752, 91 S.Ct. 1122, 1126, 28 L.Ed.2d 453 (1971). In Miller, for example, the Supreme Court held that a bank depositor has no legitimate expectation of privacy in financial information voluntary conveyed to banks and exposed to their employees in the ordinary course of business. The Court emphasized:
The depositor takes the risk, in revealing his affairs to another, that the information will be conveyed by that person to the Government____ This Court has held repeatedly that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be betrayed.
425 U.S. at 443, 96 S.Ct. at 1624. Thus, the court in Miller reasoned that because the depositor had "assumed the risk" of disclosure, it would be unreasonable for him to expect his financial records to remain private. The conclusion which can be drawn from this is that "[t]he Fourth Amendment is implicated only if the authorities use information with respect to which the expectation of privacy has not already been frustrated." United States v. Jacobsen, 104 S.Ct. at 1658-59.
The prior analysis dictates that Alinovi can claim no legitimate or reasonable expectation of privacy here. As we have seen, Alinovi voluntarily conveyed her paper both to her professor and to a school administrator (Generelli). In so doing, she "assumed the risk" that her professor would reveal to the school authorities, and that Generelli would share with other school administrators, the contents of her paper. Aside from her refusal to show her paper to Principal Bombard because she did not want him to read the criticism of him and because she felt it was her private paper, Alinovi did nothing to preserve the paper as a confidential or private document. Moreover, it is settled that a legitimate expectation of privacy means more than a subjective expectation of keeping incriminating evidence hidden. United States v. Thomley, 707 F.2d at 624; United States v. Hershenow, 680 F.2d at 855. See, Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. at 143-44 n. 12, 99 S.Ct. at 430-431 n. 12. Thus, after having exposed her paper to third parties — one of whom was in fact a member of the school administration charged with the education of Chris, the subject of her term paper — we do not see how Alinovi could have reasonably expected her paper to remain private. The Fourth Amendment is therefore not implicated here because Alinovi frustrated whatever expectation of privacy she could have had in her paper.
Alinovi argues, however, that because Generelli returned the paper to her after the meeting without having read it, she still had an actual, subjective expectation of privacy with respect to the paper. Citing Mason v. Pulliam, 557 F.2d 426 (5th Cir.1977), she claims that although she might have waived her Fourth Amendment right to privacy when she gave her paper to Generelli, her right was subsequently reinvoked when the paper was returned to her and the purpose of the core evaluation meeting had been fulfilled. We believe that this argument misses the point. Obviously, if Generelli had read the paper Alinovi would not have had any further expectation of privacy in the paper. However, Alinovi not only gave the paper to Generelli but also specifically told him that it was about Chris and that it contained information that would be helpful to him in understanding Chris's problems and prescribing an educational plan for him. Thus, we believe that whether Generelli read the paper or not makes no difference here since Alinovi had already frustrated her privacy expectation by voluntarily and unconditionally giving her paper first to her professor and then to Generelli. We do not see how Alinovi can now claim that the paper was her private property when she did little, if anything, to preserve it as private.
Moreover, Alinovi's reliance on Mason v. Pulliam, is misplaced. In Mason, a taxpayer voluntarily complied with an IRS request to produce documents. Within a week, the taxpayer changed his mind and demanded that the IRS return his documents. When the IRS refused, the taxpayer brought an action requesting the district court to order a return of the documents. The district court granted the relief, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed holding that when the basis for a search or seizure is consent the government must conform to the limitations placed upon the right to search or seize by the taxpayer. The court emphasized that unless there is an agreement as to the duration of the search, the taxpayer retains the right to withdraw his consent and reinvoke his constitutional rights. However, the Fifth Circuit specifically stated that the withdrawal of consent and reinvoeation of the Fourth Amendment rights did not affect the validity of the IRS's actions prior to the time it received notice that its right to retain Mason's documents was gone, and affirmed the district court's refusal to require the return of copies made prior to the demand for return of the documents. Obviously, once Mason had consented to inspection by the IRS of his tax records, he frustrated his expectation of privacy and could not claim a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to privacy, at least as to those documents which the IRS had examined and copied prior to Mason's demand for return.
In any event, we believe that the Fifth Circuit's rationale in Mason may have been undermined by the Supreme Court decision in Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 103 S.Ct. 3319, 77 L.Ed.2d 1003 (1983). In Andreas, the court clarified when a search subject to the Fourth Amendment occurs. In that case, a lawful customs inspection of a container revealed that it contained unlawful drugs. After being so notified, police resealed the container and delivered it to the addressee, who took possession of it. Shortly thereafter, the police seized the container and opened it without obtaining a warrant. The court held that the reopening did not constitute a "search" within the intendment of the Fourth Amendment, because once its contents were initially exposed, any protected privacy interest in the container lapsed. An important principle emphasized by the court in Andreas is that for there to be a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, there must be an infringement of a legitimate expectation of privacy. The court explained that reopening the container did not intrude on any legitimate expectation of privacy and thus did not violate the Fourth Amendment. See also, United States v. Jacobsen, 104 S.Ct. at 1660. Applying this principle to the case at bar would only reinforce our conclusion that there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment here inasmuch as, as we have seen, any reasonable expectation of privacy Alinovi may have held in her term paper was extinguished when she exposed its contents to her professor and to a school official so that there was no "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
In the case at bar, we have already seen that Alinovi lost whatever expectation of privacy in her paper she may have claimed when she unconditionally gave it to her professor and, more importantly, when she gave it to Generelli and informed him of its contents, particularly that it contained information that would help him prescribe Chris's educational program. Thus, after that point there could be no reasonable or legitimate expectation of privacy to support Alinovi's Fourth Amendment claim. We, therefore, conclude that Alino-vi in all probability entertained no actual expectation of privacy in the term paper, and that, even if she did, her expectation was not legitimate. The district court was correct in holding that since Alinovi did not have a Fourth Amendment privacy interest in her paper, any disciplinary action that resulted from her refusal to turn over the paper did not violate her constitutional rights.
III. FIRST AMENDMENT CLAIM
On this appeal, Alinovi also raises as error the district court's conclusion that the posting of the administration letters on her classroom bulletin board during Parents' Night was not protected speech under the First Amendment. The district court specifically found that Alinovi's purpose in posting the letters was to bring about a resolution of her own disciplinary problem. Consequently, citing Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983), the court held that Alinovi's action was not speech on a matter of public concern, and, thus, the School Committee's reaction thereto did not have to be justified to the court. We believe that the district court was correct in its reliance on Con-nick, and therefore affirm its dismissal of Alinovi's First Amendment claim.
Connick was a case in which an assistant district attorney, after becoming upset with an involuntary transfer, distributed a questionnaire concerning employment policies of the district attorney's office. When she was subsequently terminated, allegedly because of her refusal to accept the transfer and because her distribution of the questionnaire was considered an act of insubordination, she brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that she was wrongfully discharged because she had exercised her constitutionally protected right of free speech. Recognizing the right of public employees to comment on matters of public concern, Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968), the Supreme Court con- eluded that "[w]hen employee expression cannot be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community, government officials should enjoy wide latitude in managing their offices, without intrusive oversight by the judiciary in the name of the First Amendment." 461 U.S. at 146, 103 S.Ct. at 1689. The Court went on to hold specifically that
[w]hen a public employee speaks not as a citizen upon matters of public concern, but instead as an employee upon matters only of personal interest, absent the most unusual circumstances, a federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the wisdom of a personnel decision taken by a public agency allegedly in reaction to the employee's behavior.
Id. at 147, 103 S.Ct. at 1690 (emphasis added). Thus, the Court rejected Myers' claim to protection by the First Amendment in view of its conclusion that her speech concerned only her dissatisfaction with her own employment situation.
Applying the reasoning in Connick to the case at bar, we agree with the district court that Alinovi's posting of the administration letters on Parents' Night cannot be considered speech on a matter of public concern and is therefore not protected by the First Amendment. The fact, as found by the district court and not contested by Alinovi, is that Alinovi is interested simply in getting her own disciplinary problem resolved. In light of Supreme Court precedent in this area, we do not think that the resolution of a pending personnel problem between a public school teacher and her employer is a matter of public concern. See, e.g., Connick, supra (questions of confidence in supervisors, office morale and need for a grievance committee are not issues of public concern, but question regarding pressure upon public employees to work on political campaigns is an issue of public concern); Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 439 U.S. 410, 99 S.Ct. 693, 58 L.Ed.2d 619 (1979) (school district's allegedly racially discriminatory policies are of public concern); Perry v. Sinderman, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972) (testimony before state legislature on whether a two-year state college should become a four-year college is protected by First Amendment); Pickering, supra, (Board of Education's allocation of money between athletics and education is issue of public concern).
Finally, in what amounts to a last minute attempt to come within the holding of Con-nick, Alinovi argues that her speech concerned the public issue of her Fourth Amendment rights and is thus protected by the First Amendment. This attempt must necessarily fail because, as we have seen, when she posted the letters on Parents' Night she was not concerned with any possible violation of her Fourth Amendment rights, but rather, with the purely personal issue concerning the lack of action on the part of the administration regarding her disciplinary problem. Thus, since we agree with the district court that Alinovi's posting of the administration letters was not speech on an issue of public concern, we conclude that the district court was correct in holding that the School Committee need not justify to the court any employment decision made by them regarding Alinovi in reaction to the posting incident.
The judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.
. The following summary of facts is drawn extensively from the detailed findings of fact made by the district court after the conclusion of a two-day, non-jury trial. We note that appellant Alinovi has not contested the findings of fact of the district court and, in fact, draws heavily from said findings in her own statement of facts in her appellate brief.
. For a general description of the statutory and regulatory scheme which applies to special needs education, see Isgur v. School Committee of Boston, 9 Mass.App.Ct. 290, 400 N.E.2d 1292 (1980). See generally, Stock v. Massachusetts Hospital School, 392 Mass. 205, 467 N.E.2d 448 (1984); City of Boston v. Board of Education, 392 Mass. 788, 467 N.E.2d 1318 (1984).
. Alinovi testified during the trial that she expected Mr. Generelli to take all the information which had been brought up during the conference home with him and then make a decision concerning Chris's educational plan on the basis of what he had heard and read. She also stated that she told Mr. Generelli that her case study contained more information about Chris which would be helpful to him in making his decision. She further testified that Mr. Generelli initially hesitated to take the paper, but that he then gave in and took it after she told him that he could read the paper at his leisure to gain more insight into the case. Finally, Alinovi testified
that Mr. Generelli took the paper and put it in his briefcase without reading it. (App.135-136).
We also note that Alinovi testified that when she came into the room where the conference was to be held, Mr. Generelli was "walking towards or standing near the head of the table where he was going to sit." (App. 134). Almost all the participants had arrived before Alinovi entered the library. (App. 133). Principal Bombard testified, upon a question posed to him by the court during his direct examination, that he saw Alinovi giving her paper to Mr. Generelli, and heard her tell him that it was a case study on Chris. (App. 310-311).
. See United States v. Nasser, 476 F.2d 1111, 1123 (7th Cir.1973) (electronic surveillance of IRS employee to verify whether he was properly performing IRS work in his IRS office not unreasonable); United States v. Collins, 349 F.2d 863, 867-68 (2d Cir.1965) (search of Customs employee's desk and work area for missing package "was a constitutional exercise of the power of the Government as [his] employer, to supervise and investigate the performance of his duties as a Customs employee"), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 960, 86 S.Ct. 1228, 16 L.Ed.2d 303 (1966); see also United States v. Kahan, 350 F.Supp. 784, 793 (S.D.N.Y.1972) (dictum) (government supervisor may inspect work area of subordinate to evaluate his job performance), rev'd on other grounds, 479 F.2d 290 (2d Cir.1973), rev'd per curiam, 415 U.S. 293, 94 S.Ct. 1179, 39 L.Ed.2d 297 (1974); cf. Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U.S. 273, 278, 88 S.Ct. 1913, 1916, 20 L.Ed.2d 1082 (1968) (dismissal of public employee for refusal to answer questions narrowly related to his official duties not violative of fifth amendment); Biehunik v. Felicetta, 441 F.2d 228 (2d Cir.) (police commissioner may, consistent with the fourth amendment, order 62 policemen, upon pain of discharge, to appear in a lineup before civilians who allege that they were victims of a police assault, since reasonably related to performance of police duties), cert denied, 403 U.S. 932, 91 S.Ct. 2256, 29 L.Ed.2d 711 (1971).
. See note 2, supra, and accompanying text.