2005: Garcetti v. Ceballos

On October 12, 2005, Gil Garcetti and Richard Ceballos went to court. Ceballos was working at the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office at the time when he got word that “a sheriff misrepresented facts in a search warrant affidavit,” as said by Oyez. Ceballos notified people working on the case, and they brushed him off, leaving the case to go to court. The defense then had Ceballos testify. He got much backlash from his coworkers for testifying, and he argued that he was just exercising his First Amendment rights.

Garcetti won in a 5-4 ruling. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a statement saying that statements public employees make as part of their official duties are not protected under the First Amendment; thus, it does not protect employees who make them from disciplinary actions.

This means that if a government employee were to speak as a private citizen, that speech would be protected; however, since Ceballos was doing it as part of his duties, his employers were justified in taking action against him.

Justice Kennedy wrote, “The fact that his duties sometimes required him to speak or write does not mean his supervisors were prohibited from evaluating his performance.”

What this means for free speech: Teachers and publication advisers, who work for the school, may be limited in how much they can speak about certain topics, like censorship. However, students, who are not employees of the school, have the right to speak out and protest.