For Public Employees, Your First Amendment Rights as an American Are 'Curtailed’
Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole Ted S. Warren / AP Photo
Seattle puts its police officers on notice when it comes to their personal social media conduct.
SEATTLE — Police officers in the Emerald City, who have been subject to a host of negative headlines about their social media postings, were put on notice earlier this month: Be mindful of your write that could reflect badly on the department because the line between the First Amendment’s protection of free expression and a public employee’s official duties is fairly well established in case law.
That was the message from Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole and Ron Smith, president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild.
“Your First Amendment rights as an American is curtailed when your speech intersects with your job as a public employee,” Smith wrote in a message to officers earlier this month. “You can read the United State Supreme Court case Garcetti v. Ceballos for further clarification of the limitations of your First Amendment rights as it pertains to your employment as a police officer.”
On Friday, O’Toole, who said that her department is “working tirelessly to rebuild community trust and restore pride in our organization,” announced a new department social media policy that goes into effect March 1. The policy covers social media for professional and personal use by police officers.
And the policy makes clear that the professional responsibility of department employees extends to their personal use of social media:
Employees may express themselves as private citizens on social media sites as long as employees do not:
- Make, share, or comment in support of any posting that includes harassment, threats of violence, or similar inappropriate conduct
- Make, share, or comment in support of any posting that ridicules, maligns, disparages, expresses bias, negative connotations, or disrespect toward any race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or any other protected class of individuals
- Make, share, or comment in support of any posting that suggests that Department personnel are engaged in behavior reasonably considered to be unlawful or reckless toward public safety
- Otherwise violate any law or SPD policy
- Employees are responsible for the content of their social media accounts. Employees shall make reasonable efforts to monitor their accounts so that postings made by others on their accounts conform to this policy.
Police officers don’t forfeit their free-speech rights just because they wear a badge. But courts also have made clear that police officers and government employees don’t enjoy unfettered liberty to say whatever they want even outside the workplace.
“It’s a balance of … the officers’ First Amendment rights, particularly when they’re making statements off-duty in their personal capacity, versus the interests of the organization,” O’Toole said in an interview this week.
“Now there’s plenty of case law out there that supports us,” she said. “But we had to do that necessary research and develop the policy around that case law to ensure it will withstand a challenge.”
Smith has been vocal inside and outside of the police force he represents of the need for officers to improve their professional behavior, including their postings on social media, which have attracted plenty of negative press in recent months. Some of those postings that have been racially insensitive, anti-gay and otherwise inflammatory amid heightened public scrutiny of unprofessional police behavior.
In an interview with The Stranger, Smith said: "You applied here. And you have to treat people all the same. You have to serve the community. If you don't like the politics here, then leave and go to a place that serves your worldview."