Opinion ID: 3031198
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the pickering standard and hybrid first

Text: AMENDMENT CLAIMS The essence of Hudson’s claim is that Clark College retaliated against her because she exercised her First Amendment rights. In a prototypical retaliation scenario, to establish a prima facie case under the First Amendment, a public employee like Hudson “must show that (1) she engaged in protected speech; (2) the defendants took an adverse employment action against her; and (3) her speech was a substantial or motivating factor for the adverse employment action.” Thomas v. City of Beaverton, 379 F.3d 802, 808 (9th Cir. 2004) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Once that showing has been made, the burden shifts to the employer who must demonstrate either that, under the balancing test established by Pickering[,] the employer’s legitimate administrative interests outweigh the employee’s First Amendment rights or that, under the mixed motive analysis established by Mt. Healthy[,] the 4022 HUDSON v. CRAVEN employer would have reached the same decision even in the absence of the employee’s protected conduct. Id. (internal alterations, quotations, and citations omitted). Hudson’s claim, however, is not prototypical. As the district court explained, her claim is “more one involving freedom of association than freedom of speech.” Hudson does not claim that Clark College terminated her employment because of any statements she made to her students or to anyone else. She was free to express her views about the WTO, which her supervisor in fact shared, both inside and outside the classroom. She also was free to participate in the anti-WTO rally as an expression of her views. Nor does Hudson claim that the College curtailed her right to associate with other anti-WTO protesters unconnected to the College. Hudson concedes in her brief that “[i]t was fine with Craven if Hudson went or if individuals who happened to be students at the College went to the WTO rally; he just objected to them going together.” [1] The deprivation of First Amendment rights that Hudson asserts is thus very narrow—essentially, the right to associate with a small group of students during a specific time frame for the particular purpose of attending an anti-WTO rally. Yet, while Hudson’s claim revolves around a right to associate with students, it is not purely associational. The very purpose of the rally was to speak out against the WTO, an exercise that implicates core speech rights. Even though associational aspects predominate, the speech rights are inextricable from the claim. Her claim is best characterized as a hybrid speech/association claim.1 1 Hudson argues that Clark College’s alleged infringement of her associational freedoms must be subject to the “closest scrutiny” and is “unjustified except upon a showing of a valid interest of a State.” See NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460-61(1958). Her invocation of the highest standard of scrutiny sidesteps the critical fact that she is a public employee. HUDSON v. CRAVEN 4023 [2] We have not directly addressed the question of whether Pickering applies where the associational freedoms claimed to be infringed predominate over the freedom of speech per se. The now-entrenched Pickering balancing test stems from the proposition that “the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.” 391 U.S. at 568. The test, stated simply by the Supreme Court, requires courts “to arrive at a balance between the interests of the teacher, 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.” Id. The Pickering analysis involves a two-pronged inquiry: 1) whether the speech that led to the adverse employment action relates to a matter of “public concern”; and 2) whether, under the balancing test, the public employer can demonstrate that its legitimate interests outweigh the employee’s First Amendment rights. A review of our sister circuits’ consideration of Pickering, hybrid rights and related issues is instructive. In a case that closely parallels our own, the Second Circuit recently considered the relationship between First Amendment speech and associational rights. Melzer v. Bd. of Educ., 336 F.3d 185 (2d Cir. 2003). Melzer, a public high school teacher, was fired when it came to light that he was an active member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, an organization that promotes pedophilia. The court noted that the case was unusual in that “the activity which prompted the [School] Board to fire Melzer was not a specific instance of speech, or As the Supreme Court emphasized in Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 671 (1994), there is no conflict between the application of heightened scrutiny to restrictions on the speech of private citizens and the Pickering balancing test to the speech of government employees: the government as employer indeed has broader powers to regulate speech than does the government as sovereign. 4024 HUDSON v. CRAVEN a particular disruptive statement, but an associational activity of which speech was an essential component.” Id. at 194. Although it could be argued that, as with Hudson, Melzer was free to articulate his views so long as he did not associate in a way proscribed by his employer, the court stated that “[t]he root of the disruption at Bronx Science cannot be identified discretely as either Melzer’s associational activities or the attendant speech, for the two are dependent on one another.” Id. at 195. The court observed that the Pickering test had been applied by courts in other “hybrid” rights cases and then analyzed Melzer’s claim under that standard. Id. at 195, 196200. The most problematic aspect of applying the Pickering balancing test to associational claims is the “public concern” component. Fifteen years after Pickering, in Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), the Supreme Court fleshed out the meaning of “public concern.” The Court drew a distinction between employee speech on “matters of public concern” and “matters only of personal interest.” Id. at 147. The Court recognized that an assistant district attorney’s speech related to official pressure to work on a campaign was a matter of public concern because it was “a matter of interest to the community upon which it is essential that public employees be able to speak out freely without fear of retaliatory dismissal.” Id. at 149. As the Second Circuit noted in Melzer, “[a]pplication of the public concern test is made awkward in [such a] case given the hybrid speech/associational nature of the rights involved.” 336 F.3d at 196. In such circumstances, “an association engaged in advocacy may deliver many different statements at many different times and places and under many different circumstances. What statements, at what locations and in what context are the ones that should be analyzed is shrouded in uncertainty.” Id. The Second Circuit ultimately sidestepped the problem, assuming that Melzer’s association did involve HUDSON v. CRAVEN 4025 a matter of public concern and deciding that his claim failed anyway in the second step of the Pickering analysis. Id. at 196, 200. Although Connick was a pure speech case, the Sixth Circuit has invoked the Supreme Court’s line-drawing framework in an associational freedom claim. Boals v. Gray, 775 F.2d 686 (6th Cir. 1985). In Boals, the court zeroed in on Connick’s statement that: In all of these cases, the precedents in which Pickering is rooted, the invalidated statutes and actions sought to suppress the rights of public employees to participate in public affairs. The issue was whether government employees could be prevented or “chilled” by the fear of discharge from joining political parties or other associations that certain public officials might find “subversive.” Id. at 692 (quoting Connick, 461 U.S. at 144-45) (emphasis in Boals). Recognizing that although Pickering and Connick both involved freedom of speech, the court underscored that both cases “are based upon freedom of association cases.” Id. Consequently, in Boals, the court “perceive[d] no logical reason for differentiating between speech and association in applying Connick to first amendment claims . . . .” Id. Two circuits—the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits—have expressed concern that the Connick test does not adequately protect associational claims that do not fit neatly within the bounds of “public concern.” Although the Seventh Circuit is “firmly in the camp of those circuits that [apply] Connick to associational claims,” Balton v. City of Milwaukee, 133 F.3d 1036, 1040 (7th Cir. 1998), one panel expressed misgivings that the Connick public concern test may not adequately protect freedom of association for public employees “because some associational choices—for instance, whom to marry— are purely private matters.” Id. at 1039. These private associa4026 HUDSON v. CRAVEN tional matters often would not qualify as matters of public concern and, therefore, would not be protected from retaliatory action under the Connick test. The Eleventh Circuit explicitly rejected the application of the Pickering/Connick approach in Hatcher v. Board of Public Education, 809 F.2d 1546 (11th Cir. 1987). In Hatcher, a former school principal argued that she had been reassigned in part because of her association with parents and others who opposed the school closing plan that had eliminated her position as principal, and because “she brought her minister and a school board member to her meeting with the assistant superintendent.” Id. at 1557. The court declared that it did not view Connick as a retreat from NAACP v. Ala- bama, [357 U.S. at 460-61], in which Justice Harlan wrote for the Court: “it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertains to political, economic, religious or cultural matters . . . state action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny.” Id. at 1558. Without offering a rationale for distinguishing between speech and associational claims, the Eleventh Circuit nonetheless concluded that Connick “is inapplicable to freedom of association claims.” Id. [3] Bearing in mind the Supreme Court’s seminal public employee speech cases and their application in cases from the other circuits, we conclude that Pickering should be applied in this hybrid rights case. The speech and associational rights at issue here are so intertwined that we see no reason to distinguish this hybrid circumstance from a case involving only speech rights. HUDSON v. CRAVEN 4027 Hudson’s claim does not pose the difficulty identified in Melzer—the diffuse nature of some associations and some associational claims. Melzer, 336 F.3d at 196. Unlike Melzer, where the activity was ongoing membership in an organization, the associational right that was allegedly infringed by the College was easily identifiable in scope. Hudson’s targeted association with her students is unlike belonging to an advocacy organization that may issue “many different statements at many different times and places and under many different circumstances.” Id. Rather, Hudson and her students sought to participate together (association) in a single event that was clearly political in nature (speech). Thus, the application of the Connick public concern test is much easier here because the association in question involves a discrete event with a political orientation.