Case Study: Marvin Pickering Case

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Facts Marvin Pickering was a science high school teacher in Will County, Illinois. Pickering was dismissed from his job after he wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, Lockport Harold. The letter was sarcastically criticizing the way his superintendent and school board raised and spent funds. The superintendent and school board took offense to the comments within the letter and dismissed Marvin Pickering from his teaching job. The Will County School District asked voters in February 1961 to approve a bond to raise $4,875,000 to build two new schools. The bond proposal was not approved by voters. The school board brought another proposal to the voters in December of 1961. This time the amount rose to $5,500,000 …show more content…

Pickering’s argument rested on, as a teacher, he had to refrain from making statements about the school’s operation “which, in the absence of such position, he would have an undoubted right to engage in” (Oyez, …show more content…

Board of Regents (1967). The teacher’s interest as a citizen in making public comment must be balanced against the State’s interest in promoting the efficiency of its employees’ public services. The court found the statements of the appellant were substantially correct, regarded matters of public concern, and presented no questions of faculty discipline or harmony. The statements offered no proper basis for the school board’s action in dismissing the appellant (Oyez, n.d.). The court stated the appellant’s statements were false concerned issues that were important to the public’s attention. The statements were neither shown nor could be presumed to interfere with the appellant’s performance of his teaching duties or the school’s operation (Oyez, n.d.). In the matter of false statements, the Supreme Court looked back at New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). The school board was unable to prove the statements were malicious in nature. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Illinois Supreme

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