Alves v. Board of Regents, No. 14-14149 (11th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs, five university employees, filed suit claiming that their grievance alleging mismanagement by their supervisor which preceded their termination is entitled to First Amendment protection. Plaintiffs claimed that they were terminated in retaliation for submitting a memorandum to university officials complaining about what they perceived to be poor leadership and mismanagement by the director of the Counseling and Testing Center of Georgia State University. The district court found that plaintiffs' memorandum constituted employee speech on an issue related to their professional duties, which is not subject to First Amendment protection. The court found that the district court correctly concluded that the speech for which plaintiffs seek First Amendment protection was made by them as employees and not as citizens, and on matters related to their employment and not public concern. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants.
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