Opinion ID: 483611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Allen's Speech as Protected Expression

Text: 16 In evaluating the first amendment rights of a public employee, the threshold inquiry is whether the statements at issue address a matter of public concern. 8 As the Supreme Court has so often recognized, such speech occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of [f]irst [a]mendment values. NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 913, 102 S.Ct. 3409, 3425-26, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215 (1982); see also Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 145, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1689, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983); Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 467, 100 S.Ct. 2286, 2293-94, 65 L.Ed.2d 263 (1980). It is more than self-expression; it is the essence of self-government, worthy of special protection. Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 74-75, 85 S.Ct. 209, 215-16, 13 L.Ed.2d 125 (1964); see also Mills v. Alabama, 384 U.S. 214, 218-19, 86 S.Ct. 1434, 1436-37, 16 L.Ed.2d 484 (1966); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 269-70, 84 S.Ct. 710, 720-21, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). 17 The Court has not articulated a precise definition of public concern, however. It has allowed only that the determination of whether an employee's speech deals with such an issue is to be made with reference to the content, form, and context of the speech. Connick, 461 U.S. at 147-48, 103 S.Ct. at 1690-91. In Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 571-72, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 1736-37, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968), the Court determined that a high school teacher's open criticism of the school board for its allocation of funds between athletics and education, and for its methods of informing taxpayers about revenue needs, addressed a matter of legitimate 'public concern.'  9 In Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. at 148, 103 S.Ct. at 1690, questions posed by an assistant district attorney to her co-workers about (i) their confidence and trust in certain supervisors, (ii) the level of office morale, and (iii) the need for a grievance committee, did not fall under the rubric of matters of public concern. This court has synthesized these holdings as follows: 18 Speech by public employees may be characterized as not of public concern when it is clear that such speech deals with individual personnel disputes and grievances and that the information would be of no relevance to the public's evaluation of the performance of governmental agencies. See Connick. On the other hand, speech that concerns issues about which information is needed or appropriate to enable the members of society to make informed decisions about the operation of their government merits the highest degree of first amendment protection. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 102 [60 S.Ct. 736, 744, 84 L.Ed. 1093] (1940) (footnote omitted). 19 McKinley v. City of Eloy, 705 F.2d 1110, 1114 (9th Cir.1983). 20 The state defendants contend that Allen's public criticism of the Project, particularly his criticism of management's communications regarding the extent of the medfly infestation, did not involve government policy. Insofar as the state defendants mean to suggest that Allen's speech did not address a matter of public concern, they are incorrect. In McKinley v. City of Eloy, 705 F.2d at 1114-15, this court had no difficulty deciding that a probationary police officer's criticism of the city for its failure to grant annual pay raises to the police force substantially involve[d] matters of public concern. 21 Just as the speech in McKinley was purposefully directed to the public, id. at 1115, and related to the competency of the police force, id. at 1114, as well as  'the efficient performance of [police] duties,'  id. (quoting Connick, 461 U.S. at 148, 103 S.Ct. at 1691), so too was Allen's speech directed to the public, 10 and related to the competency of Project management as well as the efficient performance of Project duties. Indeed, Allen's speech may rest more firmly on the highest rung of the hierarchy of [f]irst [a]mendment values, Claiborne Hardware, 458 U.S. at 913, 102 S.Ct. at 3425, because it bring[s] to light a[n alleged] breach of public trust on the part of [public officials]. Connick, 461 U.S. at 148, 103 S.Ct. at 1691. Such allegations are arguably the most fundamental sort of first amendment expression, given the first amendment's role in facilitating self-government. See id. at 161, 103 S.Ct. at 1697-98 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (We have long recognized that one of the central purposes of the [f]irst [a]mendment ... is to protect the dissemination of information on the basis of which members of our society may make reasoned decisions about the government.) (citing Mills v. Alabama, 384 U.S. at 218-19, 86 S.Ct. at 1436-37; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 269-70, 84 S.Ct. 710, 720-21, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964); A. Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government 22-27 (1948)); see also Saxbe v. Washington Post Co., 417 U.S. 843, 862, 94 S.Ct. 2811, 2821, 41 L.Ed.2d 514 (1974) (Powell, J., dissenting) (No aspect of that constitutional guarantee is more rightly treasured than its protection of the ability of our people through free and open debate to consider and resolve their own destiny.). 22 Of course, even speech dealing with matters of public concern is subject to governmental regulation. See Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 558, 85 S.Ct. 453, 466, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965) (time, place, and manner regulations proper when reasonably related to valid public interest). In the public employment context, [t]he problem ... is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the [employee] as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. at 1734-35. Thus, the Court upheld the firing of the assistant district attorney in Connick--even though one of her questions to fellow workers touched upon a matter of public concern--because it was reasonable for her supervisor to have believed that the speech would disrupt the office, undermine his authority, and destroy close working relationships. 461 U.S. at 154, 103 S.Ct. at 1694. 11 Yet it might have been necessary, cautioned the majority, for the government to make a stronger showing of disruption if the employee's speech [had] more substantially involved matters of public concern. Id. at 152, 103 S.Ct. at 1692-93. 12 23 Exactly what that stronger showing entails is unclear. The Supreme Court has deemed it both inappropriate and unfeasible to lay down a general standard [b]ecause of the enormous variety of fact situations in which critical statements by ... public employees may be thought by their superiors ... to furnish grounds for dismissal. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 569, 88 S.Ct. at 1735; Connick, 461 U.S. at 154, 103 S.Ct. at 1694. In this circuit, a police department ordinarily will not be governed by the same standard as a school district: Substantial differences between the public interest in education and the public interest in safety and order justify a difference in the standards by which the respective institutions may protect themselves from ... their employees. Byrd v. Gain, 558 F.2d 553, 554 (9th Cir.1977) (refusing to expunge reprimands from personnel files of officers who had issued public statements about the police department's stop-and-frisk tactics), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1087, 98 S.Ct. 1282, 55 L.Ed.2d 792 (1978); see also Kannisto v. City of San Francisco, 541 F.2d 841 (9th Cir.1976) (discussed supra note 12), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 931, 97 S.Ct. 1552, 51 L.Ed.2d 775 (1977). Yet even in a police department, the complained-of disruption must be real, [and] not imagined. McKinley, 705 F.2d at 1115. The disruption exception cannot serve as a pretext for stifling legitimate speech or penalizing public employees for expressing unpopular views. Id. 24 In Phillips v. Adult Probation Dep't, 491 F.2d 951 (9th Cir.1974) which upheld the suspension of a probation officer who had refused to remove a political poster from his office, the government's allegation of disruption was well documented: 25 The clerk typist and receptionist ... stated that the poster was disruptive to her [work], and she would not do any more typing for [the officer]. Two others stated that the poster made them 'extremely upset' and 'extremely angry,' one of them (a senior ... officer) stating further that it was a 'detrimental morale factor.' Another senior ... officer stated that ... the poster personally offended him and that unless it was removed 'a problem would arise within the department since other[s] ... were also offended by the poster.' 26 Id. at 953 n. 4. The supervisor testified that if [he had] not take[n] immediate action, ... morale would have been devastat[ed] at a time when tremendously heavy case loads impose[d] a severe burden upon [the] staff. Id. at 953. 27 Here, the defendants have put forth no explanation of how Allen's statements to the media impeded his ability to perform his job or interfered with the Project's public responsibilities. Cf. Connick, 461 U.S. at 151-52, 103 S.Ct. at 1692-93. 13 To be sure, the medfly infestation represented a serious threat to California's agriculture industry. Other agricultural states, as well as Japan, were poised to quarantine California produce. Yet the very seriousness of the threat underlines the importance of speech meant to inform the public of mismanagement on the part of those entrusted to contain the threat. Thus, the defendants' invocation of the threat should not be enough to justify their alleged restriction of speech. If the efficient functioning of the eradication program necessitated police-type discipline, then the defendants must explain why. If the defendants judged Allen's speech to be a disturbance to the Project's work, then they must be held at least to an assertion of the basis upon which that judgment rested. 14 The district court erred in concluding that all adverse action against Allen was justified because of the nature and context of his statements to the media. Accordingly, we proceed to a discussion of whether Allen would have suffered his alleged harm even had he not engaged in his protected speech. 28