JULY 18, 2014Public employee testimony Constitutionally protected
(Wash., D.C.) In a case likely to expand some free speech protections for public employees, the U.S. Supreme Court this month ruled that the First Amendment shields court testimony that is outside the scope of the employee’s normal duties and which is given as “a matter of public concern.”
In such instances, said the justices in overruling lower courts, the employee should not be subject to disciplinary action by his or her employer.
In its unanimous and relatively brief opinion in Lane v. Franks, authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court concluded that Edward Lane, an employee at a community college program, possessed First Amendment protection for his testimony in a criminal prosecution resulting from fraud in that program.
“Almost 50 years ago, this Court declared that citizens do not surrender their First Amendment rights by accepting public employment,” Sotomayor wrote, citing the landmark 1968 Pickering v. Board of Education. “Rather, the First Amendment protection of a public employee's speech depends on a careful balance 'between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.'”
The case involved Edward Lane, who sued Central Alabama Community College president Steve Franks after Lane was fired from his job as director of the school's program for at-risk youth. Lane had discovered that a state representative was on the program's payroll despite doing no work for the group.
When he demanded that she show up for work and she refused, he removed her from the payroll, despite, according to him, being told by his superiors not to do so. Franks later laid off 29 probationary employees, including Lane. All but Lane and one other employee were returned to their positions.
Franks had argued that under Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006) the First Amendment does not protect a public employee’s speech made pursuant to the employee’s official job duties and, thus, does not insulate the employee from discipline for such speech.
But the Supreme Court justices held that “Truthful testimony under oath by a public employee outside the scope of his ordinary job duties is speech as a citizen for First Amendment purposes. That is so even when the testimony relates to his public employment or concerns information Public employee testimony Constitutionally protected :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet: