Can you “Say Anything” in the workplace?
Last month, a Silicon Valley CEO told employees that its mission doesn’t include taking stands on political issues outside the financial realm.
As a result, and as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, “employees were told that internal debates about politics and activism not related to
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Garcetti several years ago, there was a lot of chatter about whether public employees still had substantive First Amendment free speech rights.
And for a short while, the trend did seem to indicate that speech that related to an employee’s “official job duties” was to be construed
Last year, I talked about a First Amendment retaliation case and noted the difficulties in defending against such claims. A new case out of the federal court in Connecticut last week highlights the those difficulties even further.
In Brown v. Waterbury Board of Ed. (download here), the Plaintiff, a custodian for the Waterbury
To borrow an oft-quoted phrase, it is commonly understood that public employees do not shed their constitutional rights at the workplace entrance. Indeed
, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that employees have the right to speak out on matters of "public concern" without retribution, based on First Amendment protections.
But one question that
A few days ago, I reported on the summary judgment decision of Tucker v. Journal Register East. While the case is notable for its discussion of the whether an employee who expresses reluctance to testify has actually "participated" in a protected activity for Title VII purposes, the case also has a discussion of a