Opinion ID: 659889
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Demonstrating Constitutional Protection for Asserted Right

Text: 15 For a public employee to establish that an adverse employment action has infringed a constitutional right, the employee must first demonstrate that the asserted right is protected by the Constitution. In this case, the right that McCabe alleges has been impermissibly burdened is her right to association with her husband, Joel McCabe. 16 According to Supreme Court precedent, the United States Constitution accords special protection to two different forms of association, intimate association and expressive association. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 617-18, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 3249-50, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984); City of Dallas v. Stanglin, 490 U.S. 19, 23-25, 109 S.Ct. 1591, 1594-95, 104 L.Ed.2d 18 (1989). Roberts teaches that the right of intimate association--the freedom to choose to enter into and maintain certain intimate human relationships--is protected from undue governmental intrusion as a fundamental aspect of personal liberty. Roberts, 468 U.S. at 617-20, 104 S.Ct. at 3249-51. At a minimum, the right of intimate association encompasses the personal relationships that attend the creation and sustenance of a family--marriage, childbirth, the raising and education of children, and cohabitation with one's relatives. Id. at 619, 104 S.Ct. at 3250. Whether the right extends to other relationships depends on the extent to which those attachments share the qualities distinctive to family relationships, such as relative smallness and seclusion from others in critical aspects of the relationship. Id. at 620, 104 S.Ct. at 3250. The right of expressive association--the freedom to associate for the purpose of engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment, such as speech, assembly, petition for the redress of grievances, and the exercise of religion--is protected by the First Amendment as a necessary corollary of the rights that the amendment protects by its terms. Id. at 617-18, 622, 104 S.Ct. at 3249, 3252. Both the intimate and the expressive association rights are considered fundamental. See, e.g., id. at 617-19, 622-29, 104 S.Ct. at 3249-50, 3252-55; Hatcher v. Board of Public Education, 809 F.2d 1546, 1558 (11th Cir.1987). Therefore, a plaintiff like McCabe can obtain special protection for an asserted associational right if she can demonstrate either that the asserted association closely enough resembles a family relationship to be protected by the right to intimate association, or that the purpose of the association is to engage in activities independently protected by the First Amendment. 17 Appellees do not contest the district court's conclusion that McCabe's asserted right, the right to be married, is a freedom of association right entitled to special constitutional protection. See, e.g., Appellees' Brief at 8. To argue otherwise would be unreasonable, since Roberts explicitly states that the right to be married falls within the scope of the constitutional right of intimate association. See Roberts at 619, 104 S.Ct. at 3250. Moreover, it is well established that the right to marriage, like other intimate association rights, is fundamental. Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 383, 98 S.Ct. 673, 679, 54 L.Ed.2d 618 (1978); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967). 18 Of course, a single association may possess both intimate and expressive features and therefore fall within the scope of not only the right of intimate association but also the right to expressive association. See Roberts at 618, 104 S.Ct. at 3249 ([t]he [intimate and expressive] features of constitutionally protected association may, of course, coincide.); IDK, Inc. v. Clark County, 836 F.2d 1185, 1193 (9th Cir.1988) (citing Roberts ); Kenneth L. Karst, The Freedom of Intimate Association, 89 Yale L.J. 624, 654 (1980). However, in her complaint McCabe deems the allegedly infringed right the right of intimate association, see R1-1-5 (Complaint), and does not claim that appellees have burdened her right to associate with her husband for the purpose of engaging in First Amendment activities, see R1-1 (Complaint). Therefore, we view this case as implicating only the right to intimate association.