MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Bessie Givhan was dismissed from her employment as a junior high English teacher at the end of the 1970-1971 school year.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. Ayers v. Western Line Consol. School Dist., 555 F.2d 1309 (1977). Although it found the District Court's findings not clearly erroneous, the Court of Appeals concluded that because petitioner had privately expressed her complaints and opinions to the principal, her expression was not protected under the First Amendment. Support for this proposition was thought to be derived from Pickering, supra, Perry, supra, and Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977), which were found to contain "[t]he strong implication . . . that private expression by a public employee is not constitutionally protected." 555 F. 2d, at 1318. The Court of Appeals also concluded that there is no constitutional right to "press even `good' ideas on an unwilling recipient," saying that to afford public employees the right to such private expression "would in effect force school principals to be ombudsmen, for damnable as well as laudable expressions." Id., at 1319. We are unable to agree that private expression of one's views is beyond constitutional protection, and therefore reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment and remand the case so that it may consider the contentions of the parties freed from this erroneous view of the First Amendment.
In Pickering a teacher was discharged for publicly criticizing, in a letter published in a local newspaper, the school board's handling of prior bond issue proposals and its subsequent allocation of financial resources between the schools' educational and athletic programs. Noting that the free speech rights of public employees are not absolute, the Court held that in determining whether a government employee's speech is constitutionally protected, "the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern" must be balanced against "the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees." 391 U. S., at 568. The Court concluded that under the circumstances of that case "the interest of the school administration in limiting teachers' opportunities to contribute to public debate [was] not significantly greater than its interest in limiting a similar contribution by any member of the general public." Id., at 573. Here the opinion of the Court of Appeals may be read to turn in part on its view that the working relationship between principal and teacher is significantly different from the relationship between the parties in Pickering,
Perry and Mt. Healthy arose out of similar disputes between teachers and their public employers. As we have noted, however, the fact that each of these cases involved public expression by the employee was not critical to the decision. Nor is the Court of Appeals' view supported by the "captive audience" rationale. Having opened his office door to petitioner, the principal was hardly in a position to argue that he was the "unwilling recipient" of her views.
The First Amendment forbids abridgment of the "freedom of speech." Neither the Amendment itself nor our decisions indicate that this freedom is lost to the public employee who arranges to communicate privately with his employer rather
While this case was pending on appeal to the Court of Appeals, Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, supra, was decided. In that case this Court rejected the view that a public employee must be reinstated whenever constitutionally protected conduct plays a "substantial" part in the employer's decision to terminate. Such a rule would require reinstatement of employees that the public employer would have dismissed even if the constitutionally protected conduct had not occurred and, consequently, "could place an employee in a better position as a result of the exercise of constitutionally protected conduct than he would have occupied had he done nothing." 429 U. S., at 285. Thus, the Court held that once the employee has shown that his constitutionally protected conduct played a "substantial" role in the employer's decision not to rehire him, the employer is entitled to show "by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision as to [the employee's] re-employment even in the absence of the protected conduct." Id., at 287.
The Court of Appeals in the instant case rejected respondents' Mt. Healthy claim that the decision to terminate petitioner would have been made even if her encounters with the principal had never occurred:
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated insofar as it relates to petitioner, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring.
Because this Court's opinion in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, had not been announced when the District Court decided this case, it did not expressly find that respondents would have rehired petitioner if she had not engaged in constitutionally protected conduct. The District Court did find, however, that petitioner's protected conduct was the "primary" reason for respondents' decision.
My understanding of the District Court's finding is the same as the Court of Appeals'. Nevertheless, I agree that the District Court should have the opportunity to decide whether there is any need for further proceedings on the issue. If that court regards the present record as adequate to enable it to supplement its original findings without taking additional evidence, it is free to do so. On that understanding, I join the Court's opinion.
FootNotes
"(1) [A] flat refusal to administer standardized national tests to the pupils in your charge; (2) an announced intention not to co-operate with the administration of the Glen Allan Attendance Center; (3) and an antagonistic and hostile attitude to the administration of the Glen Allan Attendance Center demonstrated throughout the school year."
"Appellants also sought to establish these other bases for the decision not to rehire: (1) that Givhan `downgraded' the papers of white students; (2) that she was one of a number of teachers who walked out of a meeting about desegregation in the fall of 1969 and attempted to disrupt it by blowing automobile horns outside the gymnasium; (3) that the school district had received a threat by Givhan and other teachers not to return to work when schools reopened on a unitary basis in February, 1970; and (4) that Givhan had protected a student during a weapons shakedown at Riverside in March, 1970, by concealing a student's knife until completion of a search. The evidence on the first three of these points was inconclusive and the district judge did not clearly err in rejecting or ignoring it. Givhan admitted the fourth incident, but the district judge properly rejected that as a justification for her not being rehired, as there was no evidence that [the principal] relied on it in making his recommendation." Ayers v. Western Line Consol. School Dist., 555 F.2d 1309, 1313 n. 7 (CA5 1977).
"The statements [were] in no way directed towards any person with whom appellant would normally be in contact in the course of his daily work as a teacher. Thus no question of maintaining either discipline by immediate superiors or harmony among coworkers is presented here. Appellant's employment relationships with the Board and, to a somewhat lesser extent, with the superintendent are not the kind of close working relationships for which it can persuasively be claimed that personal loyalty and confidence are necessary to their proper functioning." 391 U. S., at 569-570.
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