684
Souter, J., concurring
permitting public employers to punish employees in reliance on third-party reports "involve[s] some risk of erroneously punishing protected speech." Ante, at 676.
This is a risk that the public employer's interests justify tolerating, as the plurality's opinion explains, but only when the public employer's conduct was reasonable, see ante, at 677-678, and only when the employer "really did believe" the third-party report, ante, at 679; see also ante, at 680 (an employer need not investigate further " 'if the belief an employer forms supporting its adverse personnel action is "reasonable" ' ") (citation omitted); ante, at 677 (courts must "look to the facts as the employer reasonably found them to be") (emphasis deleted).* A public employer who did not really believe that the employee engaged in disruptive or otherwise punishable speech can assert no legitimate interest strong enough to justify chilling protected expression, whether the employer affirmatively disbelieved the third-party report or merely doubted its accuracy. Imposing liability on such an employer respects the "longstanding recognition that the First Amendment's primary aim is the full protection of speech upon issues of public concern, as well as the practical realities involved in the administration of a government office." Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 154 (1983).
Accordingly, even though petitioners conducted an objectively reasonable investigation into Ballew's report about respondent Churchill's conversation with Perkins-Graham, I believe that petitioners' dismissal of Churchill would have violated the Free Speech Clause if after the investigation they doubted the accuracy of the report and fired Churchill for speech, or for a portion of her speech, that they genuinely suspected was nondisruptive (assuming that the speech was
*In addition, and also because of the risk of chilling protected expression, the public employer must believe that the discipline chosen is an appropriate, and not excessive, response to the employee's speech as reported. I do not understand respondents in this case to raise any claim that the discharge was pretextual in this respect.
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