The Public Employment Relationship and the Supreme Court in the 1980S

Abstract

During the 1980s, Supreme Court decisions on the public employment relationship tended to constitutionalize public personnel administration further and to promote adjudicatory processes within it. The Court has been highly divided on issues involving the public employment relationship and, for the most part, has not developed broad general doctrines that comprehensively define the scope of public employees' constitutional rights. Rather, it has opted frequently for balancing approaches that promote a case-by-case jurisprudence that may fail to afford public personnelists adequate guidance. This article reviews Supreme Court decisions in the areas of public employees' substantive constitutional rights, their constitutional rights to procedural due process and equal protection, and their qualified immunity/liability for breaches of others' constitutional and/or federally protected statutory civil rights.