Legal rights for public employees are not clear in the area of social media speech. Following the Garcetti v Ceballos (2006) U.S. Supreme Court case, the pursuant to duty test was established. The social media speech of public employees, including educators, could be considered pursuant to their duties as an employee. This means that public employees are vulnerable to disciplinary action from their employer for social media speech. Furthermore, public employees are vulnerable even when they believe their social media speech is done as a private citizen. For this research study, 28 cases at the federal and state levels were analyzed. Seven of the examined cases were U.S. Supreme Court cases involving public employee speech rights. The other 21 cases were extracted from cases determined at the federal and state levels. The cases taking place after the Garcetti v Ceballos (2006) pursuant to duty test were analyzed to see how the test was applied to employee speech. Cases were also analyzed to see what other precedents from the courts had been applied. Additionally, private sector social media rights research was analyzed and reviewed to create more clarity for employees. The findings of the research show the courts have tested employee speech under the Pickering balancing test and the pursuant to duty test. The results of the case analyses were applied to provide clarity to employees regarding social media speech rights. Employee social media speech has to pass both tests to allow First Amendment protections. Employers need to create organization policy and training on this matter to protect the interest of both the organization and employees regarding avoidance of controversy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1873828 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Hairgrove, Benjamin Council |
| Contributors | Pazey, Barbara, Waddell, Stephen, Gilstrap, Stephen, Edwards, Wesley |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | vi, 119 pages, Text |
| Rights | Public, Hairgrove, Benjamin Council, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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