Case: Individual Employment Rights/First Amendment (Iowa Ct. App.)

A former teacher for the Sioux City Community School District has no cause of action for free speech under the First Amendment based on her employer’s reaction to anonymous harassing letters she was discovered by police to have sent to several of her co-workers, an Iowa court of appeal affirmed. The district court properly found based on the content, form and context of the letters, that the speech involved was related to her job and was not protected speech on matters of public concern. The letters were sent to specific individuals at their homes, the recipients were all employed by ...