Hardgrave on Garcetti v. Ceballos and the Future of Public Employee Speech

Joseph Hardgrave (Nova Southeastern Student) has posted on the ExpressO Preprint Series his work entitled: If You Work for the Government, Then Shut Your Mouth: Garcetti v. Ceballos and the Future of Public Employee Speech.

From the introduction:

If you work for the government beware. You may not be a citizen, but merely dispensable
property of the state, if you say anything that could be termed part of your “official duties.” The Supreme Court’s recent five to four decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos holds, “that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.” This means that dedicated government employees who would otherwise voice concerns over
inefficiency and corruption must make a difficult decision. Speak up and try to improve the government they have dedicated themselves to or keep their mouths’ shut for fear of being fired by supervisors who don’t want to hear it? The ultimate irony comes from the basis of the majority’s reasoning in Garcetti: promote governmental efficiency by giving supervisors latitude to control their employees, when the effect of this decision will be the chilling of employees willing to expose inefficiency internally, because it would be safer to expose the grievance off the clock by holding a press conference on the office lawn.

You can read the rest of his take on this important and developing area of public employee free speech law here.

PS