Opinion ID: 765358
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scope of McEvoy

Text: 35 The District Court properly recognized that a policy-making employee, vulnerable to discharge solely because of his political affiliation, nonetheless has some constitutional protection against a discharge impermissibly motivated by other factors. As we pointed out in McEvoy, 124 F.3d at 102, a policy-maker may not be discharged for such reasons as race, sex, or national origin. In McEvoy, we considered whether a policy-maker, vulnerable to discharge because of political affiliation, was protected against a discharge motivated by his exercise of his right of free speech. We ruled that he was not, deeming it anomalous that a policy-maker whose provocative speech arguably interferes with work-place efficiency should enjoy greater protection than a policy-maker who 'quietly, inoffensively, undemonstratively belongs to the wrong political party.' Id. at 101 (quoting Wilbur v. Mahan, 3 F.3d 214, 218 (7th Cir. 1993)). 36 In the pending case, Judge Scullin understood McEvoy to remove First Amendment protection for any policy-maker discharged in part for political affiliation whenever the employer's motivation also included any aspect of the employee's First Amendment rights. Though that is a plausible reading of McEvoy, we think it goes too far and is not consistent with the rationale of McEvoy. McEvoy was based on the close relationship between a public employer's justified concern about a policy-making employee's political affiliation and concern about that employee's public expressions. Protection for the policy-maker in McEvoy would not only have created the anomaly noted by the Seventh Circuit in Wilbur, it would also have obliged courts to make extremely fine distinctions between the threat to the proper functioning of a government office posed by the political affiliation of policy-makers and that posed by their political speeches. 37 However, where the employer's motivation rests in part on the exercise of First Amendment rights that are not closely related to political affiliation, the rationale of McEvoy is inapplicable. Firing someone because of his relationship with his spouse, for instance, is entirely distinct from firing someone because of his party affiliation. The factual complications likely to arise in determining where patronage ends and speech begins are not a concern in the context of a First Amendment claim of intimate association. Adler contends that he was discharged because of his wife's lawsuit. He alleges that the discharge impaired his First Amendment right of intimate association--the protected right to associate with his wife. If he can persuade the trier of such motivation, McEvoy would not bar his claim, even though he held a policy-making position.