First Amendment protections for Bible reading during mandatory workplace training

Legal Brief -- Altman v. Minn. DOC

Altman v. Minnesota Department of Corrections -- 251 F.3d 1199 (8th Circuit 2001)

Type of Action

The case as heard in this legal brief is an appeal of a lower court's decision. The appeal was heard by the Eight Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The case was an argument on behalf of Altman and his coworkers, who were co-plaintiffs in the case, that they had a right under the First Amendment to read their Bibles during mandatory training sessions. The decision being appealed was a summary judgement issued by the District Court of Minnesota where it was held that the employees conducted rpresented speech on matter of public interest, that fact issues remained as to the state's motives in imposing the sanctions and that the state did not impose a significant burden on the employees' exercise of religion.

Facts of the Case

Altman and two other employees brought legal action against the Minnesota Department of Corrections due to reprimands that were received for the employees in question reading their Bibles during a mandatory training session that was required by the DOC.

Contentions of the Parties

The DOC held that the conduct was done during a training session when they should have been focusing on the training rather than their Bibles and that the speech was not protected. On the latter note, the employees argued the opposite.

Issue

The two issues at hand is whether the conduct could be construed as speech and whether the employer had a legitimate interest in limiting speech due to the public interest and the employer's interest in not allowing the employees to distract themselves from their performance and their overall duties. The motives come into play as far as the state is concerned because the training was in regards to the treatment and handling of gay and lesbians in terms of how one's job is done and perhaps the employer reacted as they saw the reading of Bibles during such training as a religious and/or protesting statement against being "subjected" to the training. On the other hand, the employer asserted, perhaps rightfully so, that the ambivalence and distraction from the training would cause the employees to not administer and deliver their duties as it relates to gays and lesbians once they returned to the workplace (Berkeley Center, 2014).

One major aggravating factor in favor of the DOC was that Altman (one of the plaintiffs) had sent an email complaining about the mandatory and compulsory nature of the training and that it could or would "raise deviant sexual behavior for staff to a level of acceptance and respectability." As such, it is clear this statement as well as the reading of the Bibles was a form of protest and speech even though the latter of the two acts mentioned above was non-verbal in nature. Indeed, it is noted in the case brief that the Altman, Larson and Yackly specifically read their Bibles during the session as a form of protest. The DOC retorted that they were not infringing upon the speech of the three. Rather, they reprimanded them as they were doing something other than actively and only participating in the training itself (MoreLaw, 2014).

Reasoning

The overall reasoning is that while employees generally do not lose their rights to free speech, they do not have the right to run roughshod or not-so-subtly thumb their nose at their employer and this even true of government-oriented employers like prisons. Private employers are not part of the government and thus the First Amendment protecting speech does not apply to attacks on speech like it does for the government. However, this obviously does not prevent public employers from being able to regulate and punish their employees when they disregard their duties.

Rule of Law

Due to the employment nature of the situation and due to the fact that there is a vested public interest in those guards and other employees keeping prisoners secure and in accordance with the law, it is important for training sessions and such to be taken serious and even these employers have a right to react if the employees use a training session as a platform to protest, even if the protest is silent.