04-473 - Garcetti v. Ceballos - Supreme Court of the United States

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Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006)5SOUTER, J., dissentingAs for the importance of such speech to the individual, itstands to reason that a citizen may well place a very highvalue on a right to speak on the public issues he decides tomake the subject of his work day after day. Would anyonedoubt that a school principal evaluating the performanceof teachers for promotion or pay adjustment retains acitizen’s interest in addressing the quality of teaching inthe schools? (Still, the majority indicates he could be firedwithout First Amendment recourse for fair but unfavorablecomment when the teacher under review is the superintendent’sdaughter.) Would anyone deny that a prosecutorlike Richard Ceballos may claim the interest of anycitizen in speaking out against a rogue law enforcementofficer, simply because his job requires him to express ajudgment about the officer’s performance? (But the majoritysays the First Amendment gives Ceballos no protection,even if his judgment in this case was sound andappropriately expressed.)Indeed, the very idea of categorically separating thecitizen’s interest from the employee’s interest ignores thefact that the ranks of public service include those whoshare the poet’s “object . . . to unite [m]y avocation and myvocation;” 3 these citizen servants are the ones whose civicinterest rises highest when they speak pursuant to theirduties, and these are exactly the ones government employersmost want to attract. 4 There is no question that——————Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563 (1968), may be diminished by expansivestatements of employment duties.The majority’s response, that the enquiry to determine duties is a“practical one,” ante, at 13, does not alleviate this concern. It sets out astandard that will not discourage government employers from settingduties expansively, but will engender litigation to decide which statedduties were actual and which were merely formal.3R. Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, Collected Poems, Prose, &Plays 251, 252 (R. Poirier & M. Richardson eds. 1995).4Not to put too fine a point on it, the Human Resources Division ofthe Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Ceballos’s employer,
6 GARCETTI v. CEBALLOSSOUTER, J., dissentingpublic employees speaking on matters they are obliged toaddress would generally place a high value on a right tospeak, as any responsible citizen would.Nor is there any reason to raise the counterintuitivequestion whether the public interest in hearing informedemployees evaporates when they speak as required onsome subject at the core of their jobs. Two Terms ago, werecalled the public value that the Pickering Court perceivedin the speech of public employees as a class: “Underlyingthe decision in Pickering is the recognition thatpublic employees are often the members of the communitywho are likely to have informed opinions as to the operationsof their public employers, operations which are of——————is telling anyone who will listen that its work “provides the personalsatisfaction and fulfillment that comes with knowing you are contributingessential services to the citizens of Los Angeles County.” CareerOpportunities, http://da.co.la.ca.us/hr/default.htm (all Internet materialsas visited May 25, 2006, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file).The United States expresses the same interest in identifying theindividual ideals of a citizen with its employees’ obligations to theGovernment. See Brief as Amicus Curiae 25 (stating that publicemployees are motivated to perform their duties “to serve the public”).Right now, for example, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration isappealing to physicians, scientists, and statisticians to work in theCenter for Drug Evaluation and Research, with the message that they“can give back to [their] community, state, and country by making adifference in the lives of Americans everywhere.” Career Opportunities atCDER: You Can Make a Difference, http://www.fda.gov/cder/career/default.htm.Indeed, the Congress of the United States, by concurrent resolution,has previously expressly endorsed respect for a citizen’s obligations asthe prime responsibility of Government employees: “Any person inGovernment Service should: . . . [p]ut loyalty to the highest moralprinciples and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Governmentdepartment,” and shall “[e]xpose corruption wherever discovered,”Code of Ethics for Government Service, H. Con. Res. 175, 85th Cong.,2d Sess., 72 Stat. B12. Display of this Code in Government buildingswas once required by law, 94 Stat. 855; this obligation has been repealed,Office of Government Ethics Authorization Act of 1996, Pub. L.104–179, §4, 110 Stat. 1566.
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04-473 - Garcetti v. Ceballos - Supreme Court of the United States

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