Houston Community College System v. Wilson

At times FIRE will weigh in on a case that doesn’t directly concern higher education, but may likely impact First Amendment protections at colleges and universities. This is one such case, in which Houston Community College System’s Board of Trustees censured one of its elected members. The question presented to the Court is whether the First Amendment restricts the authority of an elected body to issue a censure resolution in response to a member’s speech.

While FIRE expresses no view on this question, we filed a brief, authored by Eugene Volokh, to argue that the Court’s holding should expressly be limited to elected political bodies and their members and urges the Court not to endorse the broad view that reprimands are “government speech” categorically immune from First Amendment scrutiny. In a wide range of other contexts — such as professional licensing, public education, and government employment — formal reprimands are properly viewed not as government speech, but as formal adverse actions, akin to demotion or suspension. 

The threat of formal reprimands can have a powerful chilling effect on professionals, students, or employees, whose careers and livelihoods are on the line. ​​This is especially so because people know that a past formal reprimand will often be considered in deciding on future, more tangible, disciplinary measures. To the extent formal reprimands of professionals, students or public employees are based on constitutionally protected speech, they can violate the First Amendment.