Amici curiae respectfully submit this brief in support of Petitioner, Edward Lane, encouraging the reversal of the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit, because the judgment below is inconsistent with both the Court’s general historical approach to public employee speech and the specific approach to such speech that the Court adopted in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006).
Amici are law professors who teach and write about the constitutional rights of public employees and have published a number of scholarly articles on these topics. Amici have no financial stake in the outcome of this case, and in this brief do not ask the Court to reconsider Garcetti. But we are troubled by the tendency in some courts of appeals to misread this Court’s decision in Garcettito articulate ever-broadening readings of the narrow exemption from First Amendment protection the Court carved out. We file this brief to urge this Court to correct these rulings by clarifying the narrow nature of the exemption it recognized
