A Democratic View of Public Employee Speech Rights

The question of the scope of public employee free speech rights is of obvious importance. Such cases are frequently litigated. The speaker's continuing employment is commonly at stake. The appropriate functioning of the government agency may be at issue as well.

But government agencies are intended to operate not only with internal efficiency but with proper accountability to the public. And such accountability requires an appropriate degree of agency openness, transparency, and meaningful disclosure on publicly significant matters. Adequately assuring the democratic accountability of government agencies, it turns out, requires greater protection of public employee speech than is currently available.