Agostini v. Felton - Religious Freedom Page

United States v. National Treasury Employees Union

513 U.S. 454 (1995)

Facts of the Case:

Prior to 1989 many federal employees received "honorarium," or payment for a speech/article/appearance, to supplement their federal wages. In 1989 the new Ethics Reform Act prohibited federal employees from receiving any compensatory honorarium, while at the same time increaseing the salery of certain high ranking federal occupations by 25% to offset the lost honorarium. This ban extended to cover speeches or appearances that had no relation to the speaker's federal duties. Many of the speeches and apperances now banned had been religious in nature. A group of lower level executive branch federal employees sued, claiming their constitutionally protected freedoms had been violated.

Decision:

The Supreme Court ruled that these lower level executive branch employees First Amendment rights had been violated. Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer were in the majority, with Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas dissenting and O'Connor concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Majority Opinion: (Justice Stevens:)

The statute denies this group of employees their constitutionally protected rights. To limit federal employees in this manner would unduly harm the marketplace of ideas, as such men as Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman have published while being federal employees. This limit also unnecessarily restricts the freedom to expreess ideas and beliefs, as in the case of a man from Arlington, Virginia, who prior to the statute had lectured on the Quaker religion. Had the statute been a government response to potentioal harm it may have been permissable, however just because someone "works for the Government, they have not relinquised First Amendment rights."

Dissenting Opinion: (Justice Rehnquist:)

The statute is not a violation of the employees First Amendment rights and deciding that it is "understates the weight that should be accorded to the governmental justifications for the honoraria ban and overstates the amount of speech that will actually be deffered." Also, the decision provides for an unnecessarily broad remedy structure.

Significance:

This class of federal employees was again able to make compensated speeches and apperances contributing to the marketplace of ideas. The decision also reafirmed the Pickering decision 391 U.S. 563 in that the Government must show potential, reasonable harm in limiting employee freedoms.