In broad terms, the First Amendment prohibits public employers from retaliating against employees who engage in "protected speech". (Connecticut has a statute, Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 31-51q that purports to apply the First Amendment to private employers too.) But proving these cases remains difficult for employees.
And even victories may later end up as
For several years now, I’ve been posting about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the impact in the workplace. (And as Ryan McKeen notes, it is properly called Martin Luther King Jr. Day). Today I want to go a little deeper.
Everyone knows about the "I Have a Dream" speech (and if you
In a case with wide-ranging implications for First Amendment cases in Connecticut (and New York), the Second Circuit today held that a school teacher’s union grievances were not protected speech.
The case, Weintraub v. Board of Education of New York (download here) covers a lot of ground, but it chimes in on an issue the
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
Yesterday, I had seen some headlines at first about Attorney General Eric Holder’s comments discussing race, but had simply glossed over them. After all, it was a busy workday and well, was there going to be anything new?
But by late in the day, I received an e-mail from a former law professor of mine.
A few weeks ago, a report came out blasting the hiring procedures that existed at the Department of Justice in prior years. Because this is not a political blog, I left it for others to comment on it, such as The Word on Employment Law.
But the basic gist of the report was that