Court Opinion

ID: 9495009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:52:37.15722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:46.072944
License: Public Domain

*152McMAHON, District Judge,
concurring:
I agree with Judge Leval’s thoughtful explanation of why the City’s decision to fire Appellant did not run afoul of the Pickering doctrine. I write separately, however, because I do not think we need to reach Pickering. I agree with the district court that Appellant was engaged in purely private speech.
Whether an employee’s speech addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by the “content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.” Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147-48, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983). To fall within the realm of “public concern,” an employee’s speech must satisfy two criteria. It must relate to a matter of political, social or other concern to the community. And the employee must speak “as a citizen upon matters of public concern,” not simply “as an employee upon matters only of personal interest.” Id. at 147, 103 S.Ct. 1684. Context as well as content matters.
The vile speech for which Appellant was disciplined touched on matters of paramount political and social concern in this country. See, e.g., Connick, 461 U.S. at 148 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. 1684 (noting that the right to protest racial discrimination is of public concern); Jeffries v. Harleston, 21 F.3d 1238, 1242 (2d Cir.), vacated on other grounds, 513 U.S. 996, 115 S.Ct. 502, 130 L.Ed.2d 411 (1994) (finding that professor’s anti-semitic speech at a festival was public speech). From that proposition, the other members of the panel conclude that it qualifies as public concern speech. But that is not the law. “[S]peaking up on a topic that may be deemed one of public importance does not automatically mean the employee’s statements address a matter of public concern as that term is employed in Connick.” Kokkinis v. Ivkovich, 185 F.3d 840, 844 (7th Cir.1999). For example, courts in this Circuit and elsewhere have held that complaints of race or gender discrimination — an issue of overwhelming social importance — are not “public concern” speech if they relate only to a personal employment grievance. Saulpaugh v. Monroe Cmty. Hosp., 4 F.3d 134, 143 (2d Cir.1993) (finding that employee’s complaints of sex discrimination did not implicate matters of public concern because they “were motivated by and dealt with her individual employment situation”); Walker v. New York City Transit Auth., No. 99 CIV. 2227(DC), 2001 WL 1098022, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Sept.19, 2001) (rejecting the argument that all complaints relating to race or gender discrimination implicate matters of public concern); Nonnenmann v. City of New York, 174 F.Supp.2d 121, 135-36 (S.D.N.Y.2001) (finding that police officer’s testimony on behalf of a female, black co-worker in discrimination case was not a matter of public concern); de Silva v. New York City Transit Auth., No. CV 96-2758(RJD), 1999 WL 1288683, at *17 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 17, 1999) (citations omitted) (“an EEOC complaint based on race and sex discrimination is not a matter of public concern, and therefore, is not protected speech under the First Amendment”). See also Morgan v. Ford, 6 F.3d 750, 754-55 (11th Cir.1993) (holding that female employee’s complaints of sex harassment were designed to improve her own working conditions, rather than to raise issues of public concern).
Connick itself made the point that not all speech on matters of public significance is “public concern” speech. 461 U.S. at 147-48, 103 S.Ct. 1684. The assistant district attorney who was dismissed in that case circulated a survey containing questions about the functioning of the District Attorney’s Office that addressed issues of undoubted public importance. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court concluded that *153the assistant’s speech, viewed in its context (she was gathering ammunition for a new round of controversy with her supervisors), did not touch on matters of public concern, but only the employee’s personal interest. The Connick court looked behind pretextual “public concern” rationale' proffered by the disciplined employee in order to discern whether her conduct, taken as a whole, was actually meant to address matters of public concern, or was simply a vehicle for furthering her private interests. Id.
So, here, must we. As this Court recently recognized, “the court should focus on the motive of the speaker and attempt to determine whether the speech was calculated to redress personal grievances or whether it had a broader public purpose.” Lewis v. Cowen, 165 F.3d 154, 163-64 (2d Cir.1999) (citing Curtis v. Oklahoma City Pub. Sch. Bd. of Educ., 147 F.3d 1200, 1212 (10th Cir.1998)). The procedure endorsed in Leuns is the procedure that Judge Buchwald followed below — reaching, in my opinion, a correct result — and is the procedure we should follow on this appeal.
Nothing in Locurto v. Safir, 264 F.3d 154 (2d Cir.2001), suggests that Lewis is no longer good law, or that the context prong of the Connick analysis drops out when the speech concerns race relations. In Locurto, the police officer and fire fighters were fired for appearing in black-face at a Labor Day parade, on a float that, however tasteless, commented on the effect of integration on the future racial composition of the neighborhood (a phenomenon known as “tipping”) — an issue that has been the subject of litigation in this Court.1 The civic context of the officers’ speech on this hot-button topic made its public concern nature so obvious that no one seriously contested it, and this Court proceeded accordingly. Locurto, 264 F.3d at 166. Because the “public concern” issue was not litigated in Locurto, that case does not help us resolve this one, where the issue is being litigated, and on radically different facts.
The proposition that Pappas engaged in hateful and inflammatory speech to advance a purely private interest can hardly be disputed. Pappas sent several hundred mailings containing this poisonous material anonymously to not-for-profit organizations of all sorts, including a police benevolent society (an error that led to his downfall). The only sin these organizations committéd was to ask Pappas for money, and he sent them racist and anti-semitic literature to express his pique at receiving unsolicited mail. While Appellant initially suggested that his mailings were simply a “hobby” with no purpose, Pappas v. Giuliani, 118 F.Supp.2d 433, 445 (S.D.N.Y.2000) (citing Tr. of March 24, 1998 interview at 16), he admitted at his disciplinary hearing that the mailings were a form of “protest” against “being shaken down for money by the so-called charitable organizations.” Id. (citing Trial Tr. át 108-10). Pappas explained that he hoped the mailings would stop the organizations from soliciting him. Id. That is a matter of personal interest if ever there was one.
Pappas argues that his membership in certain White Supremacist organizations transforms speech furthering his private interests into public concern speech. But as the district court correctly noted, Pap-pas’ choice of forum is relevant to any assessment of such a claim. Connick, 461 U.S. at 148, 103 S.Ct. 1684; Kurtz v. Vickrey, 855 F.2d 723, 729 (11th Cir.1988) (“profession of public concern loses force when it is considered that he took no affirmative steps ... to inform the public at large about the problems with which he *154was so gravely concerned”); Terrell v. Univ. of Texas Sys. Police, 792, F.2d 1360, 1362-63 (5th Cir.1986) (emphasizing the pertinence of failure to make any effort to communicate contents of notebooks to the public in determining whether notebooks contained protected speech). While it is true that speech need not be made in a public forum to qualify as “public concern” speech, Givhan v. Western Line Consol. Sch. Dist., 439 U.S. 410, 414-15, 99 S.Ct. 693, 58 L.Ed.2d 619 (1979), Givhan does not make either the non-public nature of speech or the identity of the audience to which it is directed irrelevant to a private interest/publie concern analysis. If it did, all speech by public employees touching on controversial issues, regardless of context, would automatically be speech of “public concern.” As we acknowledged in Lewis, that is not the case.
Here, Pappas made no effort to forward his “protests” to parties who might profit from knowing about the public’s dissatisfaction over unsolicited direct mail fund-raising (such as the Better Business Bureau, charitable oversight agencies, IRS, the media, or the public at large). Pappas, 118 F.Supp.2d at 445. This belies his effort to cloak his private interest in the garb of “public concern” speech.
The record admits of but one interpretation: Pappas engaged in vile and offensive activity with the sole goal of getting his name excised from direct mail solicitation lists. He so stated when it mattered most — at his disciplinary hearing — and we should take him at his word. His own mouth condemneth him. Because removing his name from mailing lists is a purely personal concern, Pappas was engaged in purely personal speech, even though the words he spoke touched on matters of public importance. I would thus affirm for the reasons stated by the district court in Part B(l) of its opinion.

. United States v. Starrett City Assoc., 840 F.2d 1096 (2d Cir.1988).