Opinion ID: 205434
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether a Constitutional Right Was Violated

Text: We have formulated the inquiry into a public employee's First Amendment rights as follows: To determine whether a public employee has a protected First Amendment right, we undertake a two part inquiry, known as the Connick-Pickering [ [10] ] test. First, the court must determine whether the plaintiff's speech addressed a matter of public concern. If it did, the court must then apply the Pickering balancing test to determine whether the interests of the [plaintiff] as a citizen in commenting upon the matters of public concern are outweighed by the interest of the state, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Coady v. Steil, 187 F.3d 727, 731 (7th Cir.1999) (internal citations omitted). If, on the other hand, a public employee's speech does not implicate a matter of public concern, the Pickering balancing test is not reached because the Constitution does not insulate [the employee's] communications from employer discipline. Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 421, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006). In Spiegla v. Hull, 481 F.3d 961 (7th Cir.2007), we explained that Garcetti stands for the proposition that public employees speaking `pursuant to their official duties' are speaking as employees, not citizens, and thus are not protected by the First Amendment regardless of the content of their speech. Spiegla, 481 F.3d at 965. In all cases, we consider only the speech that resulted in the adverse action against the employee. We have stated that [t]he scope of our inquiry is defined by the number of instances in which the plaintiff has produced `specific, nonconclusory allegations' reasonably linking her speech to employer discipline. Wright v. Ill. Dep't of Children & Family Servs., 40 F.3d 1492, 1500 (7th Cir.1994) (citing O'Connor v. Chicago Transit Auth., 985 F.2d 1362, 1368-71 (7th Cir.1993)).