Opinion ID: 511657
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Grievances

Text: 30 Phares also claims that she was retaliated against for engaging in her first amendment right to petition for a redress of grievances. In 1981, Phares sought an audit of her job in an attempt to have her position reclassified as Medical Records Librarian. In addition, Phares filed two formal grievances in 1982. The first, filed on August 10, charged Tredway with attempting to hinder the job audit that Phares had requested. In that grievance, Phares also charged Tredway with altering her accrued vacation time. Phares filed a second grievance on December 6, complaining of harassment by Tredway and Wagoner. 31 The first amendment guarantees the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The Supreme Court has stated that [t]he right to petition is cut from the same cloth as the other guarantees of [the first amendment]. McDonald v. Smith, 472 U.S. 479, 482, 105 S.Ct. 2787, 2789, 86 L.Ed.2d 384 (1985). Thus, we will analyze an alleged violation of the petition clause in the same manner as any other alleged violation of the right to engage in free speech. Id. at 485, 105 S.Ct. at 2791; Day v. South Park Indep. School Dist., 768 F.2d 696, 701-03 (5th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1101, 106 S.Ct. 883, 88 L.Ed.2d 918 (1986). 32 Clearly, Phares' request for an audit and the complaints contained in her grievances involved personal, not public, concerns. Phares argues that because Illinois taxpayers fund the University of Illinois, they are interested in whether civil service jobs are classified correctly, whether civil service employees receive all their accrued vacation time, and whether civil service employees are harassed by their supervisors. This line of reasoning would make every personnel dispute within a public institution a matter of first amendment concern. The Supreme Court, however, has firmly rejected such reasoning. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 146-47, 149, 103 S.Ct. at 1689-90, 1961; Hesse, 848 F.2d at 752. 33 In addition, even if the content of Phares' grievances involved a matter of public concern, we believe that the form and context of her complaints indicate that these were purely matters of personal interest. Phares sought a job audit, using internal University procedures, as a step toward obtaining a promotion. Phares did not claim that the civil service classification system in general was flawed, but merely that her individual position should be reclassified. This was certainly not a matter of public concern. Likewise, Phares' disputes over vacation time and on-the-job harassment, while of great personal concern, were not matters of public concern. Phares was not trying to invite public scrutiny of problems within the medical records unit. Instead, Phares' speech was solely concerned with problems that affected her position. The mere fact that Phares' complaints may have included criticism of the College of Veterinary Medicine does not significantly alter the essentially private nature of the dispute. Egger, 710 F.2d at 318. Because this was a purely private personnel dispute, Phares has not stated a first amendment claim. Connick, 461 U.S. at 146, 103 S.Ct. at 1689; see Yatvin v. Madison Metro. School Dist., 840 F.2d 412, 419 (7th Cir.1988).