The US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal jurisdiction to uphold restrictions on online speech when it upheld a 1996 Virginia law barring state employees from engaging in "sexually explicit communication" on the Internet.
The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the original law on behalf of six university professors, saying that it amounted to an attack on academic freedom. The ACLU is weighing an appeal of the ruling, which came Wednesday.
"By the court�s logic, a state university English professor has a free-speech right to make water-cooler comments about the more salacious elements of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, but a political science professor could be fired for discussing the same issue in her classroom," said Ann Beeson, a staff attorney for the ACLU, in a statement.
Although some state officials will say the decision is about "preventing state employees from downloading pornography," Paul Smith, one of the George Mason University professors challenging the law, said it poses a serious threat to academic freedom.
Smith, who teaches a course on popular culture that involves the examination of pornography, was censured by his own university after the law was passed in 1996. School officials pulled the plug on his classroom Web site, which contained academic articles on culture and pornography.
In its decision, the three-judge panel acknowledged that the First Amendment applies when public employees are speaking on matters "of public concern." But it went on to say that no "job-related speech" involves matters of public concern. Therefore, job-related speech is not protected by the First Amendment.
According to Beeson, the court decision expanded the rationale behind the original law, which was aimed at online speech restrictions, and "broaden[ed] its application to be a potential gag on all sorts of state employees, including librarians, professors, and social workers."
The ACLU is considering whether to appeal the decision, either before the full Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals or to the Supreme Court.
