JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether a clerical employee in a county Constable's office was properly discharged for remarking,
I
On January 12, 1981, respondent Ardith McPherson was appointed a deputy in the office of the Constable of Harris County, Texas. The Constable is an elected official who functions as a law enforcement officer.
Although McPherson's title was "deputy constable," this was the case only because all employees of the Constable's office, regardless of job function, were deputy constables. Tr. of Oral Arg. 5. She was not a commissioned peace officer, did not wear a uniform, and was not authorized to make arrests or permitted to carry a gun.
On March 30, 1981, McPherson and some fellow employees heard on an office radio that there had been an attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. Upon hearing that report, McPherson engaged a co-worker, Lawrence Jackson, who was apparently her boyfriend, in a brief conversation, which according to McPherson's uncontroverted testimony went as follows:
McPherson's last remark was overheard by another Deputy Constable, who, unbeknownst to McPherson, was in the room at the time. The remark was reported to Constable Rankin,
McPherson brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that petitioner Rankin, in discharging her, had violated her constitutional rights under color of state law. She sought reinstatement, backpay, costs and fees, and other equitable relief. The District Court held a hearing, and then granted summary judgment to Constable Rankin, holding that McPherson's speech had been unprotected and that her discharge had therefore been proper. Civ. Action No. H-81-1442 (Apr. 15, 1983).
On remand, the District Court held another hearing and ruled once again, this time from the bench, that the statements were not protected speech. App. 120. Again, the Court of Appeals reversed. 786 F.2d 1233 (1986). It held that McPherson's remark had addressed a matter of public concern, requiring that society's interest in McPherson's freedom of speech be weighed against her employer's interest in maintaining efficiency and discipline in the workplace. Id., at 1236. Performing that balancing, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Government's interest did not outweigh the First Amendment interest in protecting McPherson's speech. Given the nature of McPherson's job and the fact that she was not a law enforcement officer, was not brought by virtue of her job into contact with the public, and did not have access to sensitive information, the Court of Appeals deemed her "duties . . . so utterly ministerial and her potential for undermining the office's mission so trivial" as to forbid her dismissal for expression of her political opinions. Id., at 1239. "However ill-considered Ardith McPherson's opinion was," the Court of Appeals concluded, "it did not make her unfit" for the job she held in Constable Rankin's office. Ibid. The Court of Appeals remanded the case for determination of an appropriate remedy.
We granted certiorari, 479 U.S. 913 (1986), and now affirm.
II
It is clearly established that a State may not discharge an employee on a basis that infringes that employee's constitutionally protected interest in freedom of speech. Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597 (1972). Even though McPherson was merely a probationary employee, and even if she could have been discharged for any reason or for no reason at all, she may nonetheless be entitled to reinstatement if she was discharged for exercising her constitutional right to
The determination whether a public employer has properly discharged an employee for engaging in speech requires "a balance between the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees." Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968); Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 140 (1983). This balancing is necessary in order to accommodate the dual role of the public employer as a provider of public services and as a government entity operating under the constraints of the First Amendment. On the one hand, public employers are employers, concerned with the efficient function of their operations; review of every personnel decision made by a public employer could, in the long run, hamper the performance of public functions. On the other hand, "the threat of dismissal from public employment is . . . a potent means of inhibiting speech." Pickering, supra, at 574. Vigilance is necessary to ensure that public employers do not use authority over employees to silence discourse, not because it hampers public functions but simply because superiors disagree with the content of employees' speech.
A
The threshold question in applying this balancing test is whether McPherson's speech may be "fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern." Connick, 461 U. S., at 146.
Considering the statement in context, as Connick requires, discloses that it plainly dealt with a matter of public concern. The statement was made in the course of a conversation addressing the policies of the President's administration.
B
Because McPherson's statement addressed a matter of public concern, Pickering next requires that we balance McPherson's interest in making her statement 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.
In performing the balancing, the statement will not be considered in a vacuum; the manner, time, and place of the employee's expression are relevant, as is the context in which the dispute arose. See id., at 152-153; Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U.S. 410, 415, n. 4 (1979). We have previously recognized as pertinent considerations whether the statement impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which personal loyalty and confidence are necessary, or impedes the performance of the speaker's duties or interferes with the regular operation of the enterprise. Pickering, 391 U. S., at 570-573.
These considerations, and indeed the very nature of the balancing test, make apparent that the state interest element of the test focuses on the effective functioning of the public employer's enterprise. Interference with work, personnel relationships, or the speaker's job performance can detract from the public employer's function; avoiding such interference can be a strong state interest. From this perspective, however, petitioners fail to demonstrate a state interest that outweighs McPherson's First Amendment rights. While
Nor was there any danger that McPherson had discredited the office by making her statement in public. McPherson's speech took place in an area to which there was ordinarily no public access; her remark was evidently made in a private conversation with another employee. There is no suggestion that any member of the general public was present or heard McPherson's statement. Nor is there any evidence that employees other than Jackson who worked in the room even heard the remark. Not only was McPherson's discharge unrelated to the functioning of the office, it was not based on any assessment by the Constable that the remark demonstrated a character trait that made respondent unfit to perform her work.
Because we agree with the Court of Appeals that McPherson's discharge was improper, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE POWELL, concurring.
It is not easy to understand how this case has assumed constitutional dimensions and reached the Supreme Court of the United States. The fact that the case is here, however, illustrates the uniqueness of our Constitution and our system of judicial review: courts at all levels are available and receptive to claims of injustice, large and small, by any and every citizen of this country.
As the Court notes, at the time this dispute arose respondent McPherson was a 19-year-old probationary employee in the Constable's office in Harris County, Texas. Her only job was to type information from court papers into a computer. She had no law enforcement responsibility, nor was she permitted to perform the primary task of the Constable's office, serving civil process. While she was seated at her desk, the office radio announced the shocking news that someone had tried to assassinate the President. Reacting to the report, McPherson engaged in a brief conversation with her co-worker, at the end of which she said: "[I]f they go for him again, I hope they get him." Tr. (Jan. 21, 1985), p. 73. This unfortunate remark was overheard by another
There is no dispute that McPherson's comment was made during a private conversation with a co-worker who happened also to be her boyfriend. She had no intention or expectation that it would be overheard or acted on by others. Given this, I think it is unnecessary to engage in the extensive analysis normally required by Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), and Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). If a statement is on a matter of public concern, as it was here, it will be an unusual case where the employer's legitimate interests will be so great as to justify punishing an employee for this type of private speech that routinely takes place at all levels in the workplace. The risk that a single, offhand comment directed to only one other worker will lower morale, disrupt the work force, or otherwise undermine the mission of the office borders on the fanciful.
I join the opinion of the Court.
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE WHITE, and JUSTICE O'CONNOR join, dissenting.
I agree with the proposition, felicitously put by Constable Rankin's counsel, that no law enforcement agency is required by the First Amendment to permit one of its employees to "ride with the cops and cheer for the robbers." App. 94. The issue in this case is whether Constable Rankin, a law enforcement official, is prohibited by the First Amendment from preventing his employees from saying of the attempted assassination of President Reagan — on the job and within hearing of other employees — "If they go for him again, I hope they get him." The Court, applying the two-prong analysis of Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), holds that McPherson's statement was protected by the First Amendment because (1) it "addressed a matter of public concern," and (2) McPherson's interest in making the statement outweighs Rankin's interest in suppressing it. In so doing, the Court significantly and irrationally expands the definition of "public concern"; it also carves out a new and very large class of employees — i. e., those in "nonpolicymaking" positions — who, if today's decision is to be believed, can never be disciplined for statements that fall within the Court's expanded definition. Because I believe the Court's conclusions rest upon a distortion of both the record and the Court's prior decisions, I dissent.
I
To appreciate fully why the majority errs in reaching its first conclusion, it is necessary to recall the origins and purposes of Connick's "public concern" requirement. The Court long ago rejected Justice Holmes' approach to the free speech rights of public employees, that "[a policeman] may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman," McAuliffe v. Mayor of New Bedford, 155 Mass. 216, 220, 29 N. E. 517 (1892). We have, however, recognized that the government's power as an employer to make hiring and firing decisions on the basis of what its employees and prospective employees say has a much greater scope than its power to regulate expression by the general public. See, e. g., Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968).
Specifically, we have held that the First Amendment's protection against adverse personnel decisions extends only to speech on matters of "public concern," Connick, supra, at 147-149, which we have variously described as those matters dealing in some way with "the essence of self-government," Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 74-75 (1964), matters as to which "free and open debate is vital to informed decisionmaking by the electorate," Pickering, supra, at 571-572, and matters as to which " `debate . . . [must] be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,' " Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 755 (1985) (plurality opinion) (quoting New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964)). In short, speech on matters of public concern is that speech which lies "at the heart of the First Amendment's protection," First Nat. Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 776 (1978). If, but only if, an employee's speech falls within this category, a public employer seeking to abridge or punish it must show that the employee's interest is outweighed by the government's interest, "as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees." Pickering, supra, at 568.
Given the meaning of the remark, there is no basis for the Court's suggestion, ante, at 386-387, that McPherson's criticisms of the President's policies that immediately preceded the remark can illuminate it in such fashion as to render it constitutionally protected. Those criticisms merely reveal the speaker's motive for expressing the desire that the next attempt on the President's life succeed, in the same way that
That McPherson's statement does not constitute speech on a matter of "public concern" is demonstrated by comparing it with statements that have been found to fit that description in prior decisions involving public employees. McPherson's statement is a far cry from the question by the Assistant District Attorney in Connick whether her co-workers "ever [felt] pressured to work in political campaigns," Connick, 461 U. S., at 149; from the letter written by the public school teacher in Pickering criticizing the Board of Education's proposals for financing school construction, Pickering, supra, at 566; from the legislative testimony of a state college teacher in Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 595 (1972), advocating that a particular college be elevated to 4-year status; from the memorandum given by a teacher to a radio station in Mt. Healthy City Board of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 282 (1977), dealing with teacher dress and appearance; and from the complaints about school board policies and practices at issue in Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U.S. 410, 413 (1979). See Connick, supra, at 145-146.
McPherson's statement is indeed so different from those that it is only one step removed from statements that we have previously held entitled to no First Amendment protection even in the nonemployment context — including assassination threats against the President (which are illegal under 18 U. S. C. § 871), see Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U.S. 204, 206 (1919); " `fighting' words," Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942); epithets or personal abuse, Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 309-310 (1940); and advocacy of force or violence, Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 591-592 (1952). A statement
The Court reaches the opposite conclusion only by distorting the concept of "public concern." It does not explain how a statement expressing approval of a serious and violent crime — assassination of the President — can possibly fall within that category. It simply rehearses the "context" of McPherson's statement, which as we have already seen is irrelevant here, and then concludes that because of that context, and because the statement "came on the heels of a news bulletin regarding what is certainly a matter of heightened public attention: an attempt on the life of the President," the statement "plainly dealt with a matter of public concern." Ante, at 386. I cannot respond to this progression of reasoning except to say I do not understand it. Surely the Court does not mean to adopt the reasoning of the court below, which was that McPherson's statement was "addressed to a matter of public concern" within the meaning of Connick because the public would obviously be "concerned" about the assassination of the President. That is obviously untenable: The public would be "concerned" about a statement threatening to blow up the local federal building or demanding a $1 million extortion payment, yet that kind of "public concern" does not entitle such a statement to any First Amendment protection at all.
II
Even if I agreed that McPherson's statement was speech on a matter of "public concern," I would still find it unprotected. It is important to be clear on what the issue is in this part of the case. It is not, as the Court suggests,
The Constable testified that he "was very concerned that this remark was made." App. 81. Rightly so. As a law enforcement officer, the Constable obviously has a strong interest in preventing statements by any of his employees approving, or expressing a desire for, serious, violent crimes — regardless of whether the statements actually interfere with office operations at the time they are made or demonstrate character traits that make the speaker unsuitable for law enforcement work. In Connick, we upheld the dismissal of an Assistant District Attorney for circulating among her co-workers a questionnaire implicitly criticizing her superiors. Although we held that one of the questions — dealing with pressure in the office to participate in political campaigns — satisfied the "public concern" requirement, we held that the discharge nonetheless did not violate the First Amendment because the questionnaire itself "carrie[d] the clear potential for undermining office relations." Connick, supra, at 152. Statements like McPherson's obviously carry a similar potential in an office devoted to law enforcement. Although that
Statements by the Constable's employees to the effect that "if they go for the President again, I hope they get him" might also, to put it mildly, undermine public confidence in the Constable's office. A public employer has a strong interest in preserving its reputation with the public. See, e. g., Snepp v. United States, 444 U.S. 507, 509, n. 3 (1980); CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 564-565 (1973). We know — from undisputed testimony — that McPherson had or might have had some occasion to deal with the public while carrying out her duties. See App. 73 (answering telephone inquiries); id., at 78-79 (personal assistance).
The Court's sweeping assertion (and apparent holding) that where an employee "serves no confidential, policymaking, or public contact role, the danger to the agency's successful functioning from that employee's private speech is minimal," ante, at 390-391, is simply contrary to reason and experience. Nonpolicymaking employees (the Assistant District Attorney in Connick, for example) can hurt working relationships and undermine public confidence in an organization every bit as much as policymaking employees. I, for one, do not look forward to the new First Amendment world the Court creates, in which nonpolicymaking employees of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission must
In sum, since Constable Rankin's interest in maintaining both an esprit de corps and a public image consistent with his office's law enforcement duties outweighs any interest his employees may have in expressing on the job a desire that the President be killed, even assuming that such an expression addresses a matter of public concern it is not protected by the First Amendment from suppression. I emphasize once again that that is the issue here — and not, as both the Court's opinion and especially the concurrence seem to assume, whether the means used to effect suppression (viz., firing) were excessive. The First Amendment contains no "narrow tailoring" requirement that speech the government is entitled to suppress must be suppressed by the mildest means possible. If Constable Rankin was entitled (as I think any reasonable person would say he was) to admonish McPherson for saying what she did on the job, within hearing of her co-workers, and to warn her that if she did it again a formal censure would be placed in her personnel file, then it follows that he is entitled to rule that particular speech out of bounds in that particular work environment — and that is the end of the First Amendment analysis. The "intemperate" manner of the permissible suppression is an issue for another forum, or at least for a more plausibly relevant provision of the Constitution.
Because the statement at issue here did not address a matter of public concern, and because, even if it did, a law enforcement agency has adequate reason not to permit such expression, I would reverse the judgment of the court below.
FootNotes
We note that the question whether McPherson "meant" the statement is ambiguous. Assuming that McPherson told Rankin she "meant it," McPherson might think she had said that she "meant" that she disliked the President and would not mind if he were dead, while Rankin might believe that McPherson "meant" to indicate approval of, or in any event hope for, political assassination. This ambiguity makes evident the need for carefully conducted hearings and precise and complete findings of fact.
The dissent accuses us of distorting and beclouding the record, evidently because we have failed to accord adequate deference to the purported "findings" of the District Court. Post, at 396. We find the District Court's "findings" from the bench significantly more ambiguous than does the dissent:
"Then I suppose we get down to the serious question, what did she `mean.' I don't believe she meant nothing, as she said here today, and I don't believe that those words were mere political hyperbole. They were something more than political hyperbole. They expressed such dislike of a high public government official as to be violent words, in context. This is not the situation where one makes an idle threat to kill someone for not picking them up on time, or not picking up their clothes. It was more than that.
"It's not like the Myers case where Ms. Myers was trying to comment upon the internal affairs of the office, or matters upon public concern. I don't think it is a matter of public concern to [sic] approve even more to the second attempt at assassination." App. 119.
The District Court's sole affirmative "finding" here, that McPherson's statement constituted "violent words, in context," is unintelligible in First Amendment terms. Even assuming that the District Court can be viewed to have made any findings of fact on the public concern issue, it is unclear to what extent that issue presents a question of fact at all. In addition, the dissent fails to acknowledge that any factual findings subsumed in the "public concern" determination are subject to constitutional fact review. See also 786 F. 2d, at 1237.
"Oh, they told me that they thought it was a prank call, but . . . they have to investigate any call that they get.
.....
". . . When they left, they told my mama and me that they were sorry. They said that they knew it was a prank call, they just have to come out and investigate. They said that's the procedure." Id., at 81-82.
"QUESTION: . . . [S]uppose when she was called in by the constable and asked whether she had said that, she said, `Yes, I said it.'
"MR. LEE [counsel for petitioners]: She was, Your Honor. She was called in by the constable.
"QUESTION: I know. Now, suppose she had said, `Yeah, I said it, but, you know, I didn't really mean anything by it.'
"MR. LEE: Yes, sir.
"QUESTION: Do we know whether she would have been fired? I mean, conceivably you might fire her anyway. I mean, he might have said, `Well, you know, you shouldn't talk like that, whether you mean it or not. I don't want that kind of talk in my law enforcement agency, whether you mean it or not. It shows poor judgment, and you're fired.'
"Was that the basis for his dismissal?
"MR. LEE: Your Honor, I would say not, based upon two trials that we have been through in the District Court." Tr. of Oral Arg. 10-11.
"MR. LEE [counsel for petitioners]: The man who sweeps the floor in the constable's office is not employed by the constable. He's employed by commissioners' court who takes care of all of the courthouses." Tr. of Oral Arg. 6.
"QUESTION: I guess it's a lucky thing then that the constable is not himself responsible for keeping the courthouse clean, which could have been the case. I mean, you —
"MR. LEE: Which could have been the case, yes, sir. That is right, because he would then —
"QUESTION: Then your argument would indeed extend to the man who swept the floor; right?
.....
"QUESTION: And you would be making the same argument here —
"MR. LEE: Yes, sir.
"QUESTION: — because that man had the name of deputy?
"MR. LEE: That's right." Id., at 8.
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