This week, the Court addresses the scope of the expressive association right and the definition of a protected disclosure under the Defense Contractor Whistleblower Protection Act.
SULLIVAN ET AL. V. UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON ET AL.
The Court holds that the First Amendment right of expressive association does not apply to members of a public university’s committee who are appointed to that committee solely to ensure compliance with federal requirements regarding diverse representation.
The panel: Judges Ikuta, Collins, and Fitzwater (N.D. Tex.), with Judge Ikuta writing the opinion and Judge Fitzwater concurring.
Key highlight: “Individuals engage in expressive association when they join with others to pursue a wide variety of political, religious, cultural, or social purposes, including the advocacy of both public and private points of view, the advancement of beliefs and ideas, and the transmission of a system of values. Members involved in such endeavors are generally protected in expressing the views that brought them together. . . . The Committee is not akin to a private association where members choose their own purposes and decide how to advance them; here, federal law prescribes both the Committee’s purpose and its functions. Because, in performing their work on the Committee, the members are not engaged in an association deemed to be expressive under Supreme Court or our precedent, the First Amendment right of expressive association does not protect them.”...
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