Editorial: Concerned employees should not be silenced
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 30, 2006 9:00 p.m.
A word of warning to all government employees: The First
Amendment right to free speech no longer applies to you.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote Tuesday, ruled that public
employees are not entitled to free speech while on the job, opening
the door for employer retaliation against whistleblowers who speak
out about government misconduct and inefficiency.
In the words of Stephen Kohn, chairman of the National
Whistleblower Center, “The ruling is a victory for every
crooked politician in the United States.”
The ruling involved the case of Richard Ceballos, a deputy Los
Angeles district attorney who levied a lawsuit after being
reassigned and denied a promotion, actions he contends were
retaliation for his having challenged the legitimacy of a search
warrant to his superiors in 2000.
The Supreme Court ruling said that a citizen who enters
government service accepts “certain limitations on his or her
freedom” and that free speech does not apply to the course of
their official duties.
In other words, public employees do not have the right to
constitutional protection against retaliation if their employer is
unhappy that the employee exposed them for illegal or improper
practices.
The effects of the ruling will be to deter police officers from
reporting department corruption, keep quiet laboratory employees
who see hazardous viruses being handled and stored in an unsafe
manner, and silence other federal employees who see problems and
inefficiencies in their agencies but fear retribution.
The UC Office of the President said Tuesday that the University
of California ““ as a public university system ““ has its
own policies that will not be affected by the ruling. The current
policy provides guidance for employees to “blow the
whistle” on “improper governmental activities”
and for whistleblowers to file and address complaints.
However, if the UC ever did take a whistleblower to court, it
could now potentially lean on the new federal standard, which
supersedes the university’s own internal policies.
The loss of protection for whistleblowers against retaliation is
particularly disconcerting given the recently uncovered scandals at
the UC: executive compensation, UCLA’s willed body program,
UC Irvine’s liver transplant program, mismanagement at the
Los Alamos National Laboratory, and improper hiring practices by
former UC Provost MRC Greenwood.
The UC has demonstrated that it is far from a perfect system.
Now, Tuesday’s ruling may allow it to fire or demote any
employees who bring misconduct to light and is protected from
retaliatory legal action from whistleblowers.
The ruling also fails to clearly differentiate between when a
public employee is acting within the course of their official
duties and when they are acting as ordinary citizens, speaking out
on a matter of public concern.
The Supreme Court does uphold the right to free speech for the
latter, but does not show where the line is drawn or when
whistleblowers have the necessary protection and when they do
not.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that
the ruling could have the “perverse” incentive for
public employees to speak out publicly and to the media, acting as
concerned citizens, rather than taking matters to their superiors
where they are now afforded no job protection. And if that’s
what happens, then so be it.
But there are plenty of cases of bureaucratic inefficiency that
can be solved internally and do not warrant a media circus.
