The Labor Law Insider | Offensive Speech in the Workplace - Part II: Drawing the Line
The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey recently issued a decision regarding the limited First Amendment protections afforded to speakers who use offensive and disruptive speech at school board...more
Marshall v. Amuso, No. 21-CV-4336 (E.D.Pa. November 17, 2021). (Federal court concludes that school board policy governing public participation at school board meetings was unconstitutionally vague and an infringement on free...more
On October 6, 2020, in Bennett v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville, No. 19-5818, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s decision in favor of a public employee who claimed that the city...more
Social media has transformed the ways legislators and their staff interact with constituents. Through social media platforms, our elected officials share insights into the legislative process, communicate with constituents,...more
Officer Matthew Minard of the Taylor, Michigan Police Department pulled over Debra Cruise-Gulyas for speeding. He cut her a break and cited her only for a non-moving violation. A lot of people would’ve been grateful, but...more
A recent decision from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals offers a key reminder for public agencies: Even within a nonpublic forum, an individual’s and/or community’s Constitutionally protected freedom of speech cannot...more
B.L. by Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District (“Levy”), Case No. 3:17-CV-1734, 2017 WL 4418290 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 5, 2017). District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania grants cheerleader’s Motion for Preliminary...more
The Supreme Court of Canada recently confirmed the availability of a novel form of worldwide injunction whereby Google, a non-party to the litigation, was required to block worldwide access to websites operated by a...more
A politically divided nation can mean a politically divided workplace. While employers generally hesitate to react to employees’ expression of political views, some comments viewed as extreme, threatening or inconsistent with...more
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, which bars registration of marks that “disparage” a group of people, is an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment free speech...more
The Slants is a Portland-based band composed of musicians of Asian-American descent who characterize their genre as “Chinatown Dance Rock.” The band’s bassist, Simon Tam, filed a trademark application for THE SLANTS for...more
WTF already?! As in, “where’s the fairness?” Time for an acronym update from our favorite government acronym, the NLRB. You will certainly remember that we have recommended asking yourself three questions before determining...more
Recently, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois addressed whether a teacher could be disciplined for using the word “n*gger” in a sixth grade classroom. In Brown v. Board of Education of the...more
An employee’s speech in the workplace may be disruptive to the day-to-day running of your company or worse, downright offensive and “bad for business.” This blog post will discuss when an employer is free to discipline an...more
If an employee calls his supervisor a “nasty motherf[**]ker” on Facebook, would the employee lose the protection that he would otherwise enjoy under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)? Probably not, according to...more