It’s A High-Flying Flag: Shurtleff v. Boston and Municipal Flag Policies

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Shurtleff v. Boston in which it ruled unanimously that the City of Boston violated the Constitution by denying a request from a religious organization to fly a Christian flag on a flagpole in front of City Hall. The Supreme Court held that Boston’s actions violated the First Amendment by restricting speech based on a religious viewpoint.

The Court’s decision supports the advice that Preti Flaherty has been providing to its municipal clients for several years. While community members may pressure municipalities to fly flags showing support for various causes, there is simply no clear way for municipal governments to avoid expressing impermissible viewpoint preferences when deciding what flags may or may not be flown. As a result, the best policy is to avoid the problem in the first place by only flying federal, state, and local government flags from municipal buildings. 

The full text of the Supreme Court’s decision may be found here.

Supreme Court Ruling Affects Maine Public Sector Unions

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that it is a violation of the First Amendment to require public sector employees to pay union dues if they do not wish to even when they benefit from collective bargaining. Maine is one of 20 states which require all public employees who are eligible to join a union to pay dues even if they object. That law will now be voided. Many employees will now choose not to pay those dues but still receive the benefits and protections negotiated between municipalities, schools, and unions. The viability of public sector unions is in serious jeopardy going forward as it is questionable whether unions will receive enough dues from their members to cover costs and provide any actual advantages for employees.

Social Media Policies and the First Amendment

Over the last several years, the National Labor Relations Act has driven much of the discussion around the legalities of social networking policies. Since 2011, for example, the NLRB’s Office of General Counsel has issued three reports concerning employer social media policies, all of which emphasize the importance of drafting social media policies narrowly so as not to infringe on activities protected under the NLRA.  For municipalities and other public employers, however, an equally important consideration when preparing and enforcing social media policies is the First Amendment.

Social Media Policy in the City of Petersburg

As a case in point, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held in Liverman v. City of Petersburg that a city’s social media policy was overbroad under the First Amendment where it prohibited in “sweeping terms” the dissemination of any information that had a tendency to discredit or reflect unfavorably on the city or its employees.  The policy applied to the city’s police department and prohibited officers from making “negative comments” on the operations of the department, which the policy explained did not constitute protected speech. Another provision prohibited officers from making comments online that “disrupted the workforce” and further discouraged officers from posting any information about their off-duty activities. The policy explained that violations of the policy would be judged on a case-by-case basis. 

At issue in the case was a Facebook exchange between two officers while off-duty, which criticized the way rookie cops were being promoted to instructors based on special interests rather than experience. After the learning of the exchange, the department disciplined the officers for violating the social media policy. The discipline ultimately made the officers ineligible for promotion to open sergeant positions.  The officers subsequently sued and claimed that the city’s social media policy infringed on their free speech rights. 

The Fourth Circuit found that although social media presents novel issues, it is the scope and restriction on speech that matters under the First Amendment – not the medium of the speech. Here, the court found that there was no doubt that the social media policy regulated the officers’ rights to speak on matters of public concern, as it was effectively a “blanket prohibition on all speech critical of the government employer.” Because the policy imposed a significant burden on expressive activity, the court looked to whether it was justified by real, not merely conjectural harms to the department’s operations.  The court acknowledged that divisive social media use had the potential to undermine the department’s interest in maintaining camaraderie among officers and trust within the community, but it nonetheless found that these concerns were too speculative to justify the policy’s sweeping restrictions and chilling effect on protected speech.   Having found the policy itself unconstitutionally overbroad, the court turned to the officers’ discipline and found that it, too, was unconstitutional.   The court found the officers’ posts dealt with issues of public import and were not merely personal grievances.  According to the court, whether the officers were correct in their views was not the issue, because the issue they addressed in their posts – i.e. the risks posed by inexperienced supervisors – was a matter of public concern.

For municipalities, this decision highlights the need to consider the restrictions contained in social media policies and the potential chilling effect of those restrictions on protected speech (and, similarly, the exercise of rights under the NLRA).  Wherever possible, municipalities should avoid restrictions that are ambiguous, vague, or susceptible to interpretation, as they are more likely to be viewed as unlawfully overbroad.  Municipalities can further reduce that risk by providing examples of the specific conduct prohibited under the policy.  Although doing so provides no guarantee, it is more likely to result in a narrowly tailored policy that avoids running afoul of the law.