The Supreme Court and the "Integrity of the Public Service"

Abstract

In a series of public employment cases over the past decade the Supreme Court has routinely defined the government's interest in public employment as maintaining the "integrity of the public service" and the "efficiency of the public service." These phrases are powerful metaphors articulating fundamental expectations about the public service, yet they have no accepted meaning in statute or judicial construction. A review of the Court's use of these phrases suggests that since the 1880s, they have been employed to represent varying and occasionally inconsistent visions of the public service. The analysis presented suggests that the Supreme Court's vision of the "integrity of the public service" guides its determination of public employees' constitutional rights and that, with a few notable exceptions, the Court in the late 20th century has been much more solicitous of the government's assertion of its efficiency interests than of public employees' assertions of constitutional rights in the employment context.