Opinion ID: 775959
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hybrid claims

Text: 31 In the alternative, appellants argue theirs are hybrid claims, implicating both free speech and free exercise rights, and requiring a strict scrutiny analysis rather than analysis under Pickering. Both rely on Employment Div., Dep't of Human Res. of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 890 (1990), where the Supreme Court held the Free Exercise Clause did not prohibit that state from applying its anti-drug laws to prohibit the use of drugs in religious ceremonies. Smith argued his right to free exercise of religion permitted him the ceremonial use of peyote in Native American Church ceremonies, even though Oregon law prohibited peyote. Id. at 874, 110 S. Ct. 1595. In reaching its holding, the Supreme Court noted: 32 The only decisions in which we have held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action have involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech and of the press, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. [296] at 304-307 [1940], (invalidating a licensing system for religious and charitable solicitations under which the administrator had discretion to deny a license to any cause he deemed non-religious); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943) (invalidating a flat tax on solicitation as applied to the dissemination of religious ideas); Follett v. McCormick, 321 U.S. 573 (1944) (same), or the right of parents, acknowledged in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), to direct the education of their children, see Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) (invalidating compulsory school-attendance laws as applied to Amish parents who refused on religious grounds to send their children to school). 33 Smith, 494 U.S. at 881. Appellants' reliance on Smith is misplaced, as the language relating to hybrid claims is dicta and not binding on this court. Donovan v. Red Star Marine Servs., Inc., 739 F.2d 774, 782 (2d Cir. 1984). However, based on this language from Smith, some courts have acknowledged the possibility of hybrid rights claims. See, e.g., Swanson By and Through Swanson v. Guthrie Indep. Sch. Dist. No. I-L, 135 F.3d 694, 699-700 (10th Cir. 1998); Brown v. Hot, Sexy and Safer Prods., 68 F.3d 625, 539 (1st Cir. 1995). Other courts have rejected hybrid rights analysis outright. See, e.g., Kissinger v. Bd. of Trustees of Ohio State Univ., 5 F.3d 177, 180 (6th Cir. 1993) ([A]t least until the Supreme Court holds that legal standards under the Free Exercise Clause vary depending on whether other constitutional rights are implicated, we will not use a stricter legal standard... to evaluate generally applicable, exceptionless state regulations under the Free Exercise Clause.). 34 In this Circuit, we have not yet addressed generally whether hybrid claims require a greater governmental justification than each component of the hybrid claim taken separately and we need not do so here because appellants' comments are limited to the public employee context. As discussed above, it is well settled that appellants' right to free speech as public employees is entitled to some First Amendment protection. However, due to the state's significant interest in regulating the expressive conduct of its employees while they are acting on behalf of the state, appellants' free speech claims are subject to the Pickering balancing test. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568. The allegation that a state action that regulates public conduct infringes more than one of a public employee's constitutional rights does not warrant more heightened scrutiny than each claim would warrant when viewed separately. In both situations, the employer's interest remains the same and is entitled to the same weight in the constitutional balance.