Cite as: 513 U. S. 454 (1995)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
In setting out the employees' interests in this case, the Court draws a meaningful distinction between the ex ante prohibition of certain kinds of speech and the ex post punishment of discrete, unforeseeable disturbances. See ante, at 466-468. There is some force to the Court's observation, because ex ante rules, in contrast to ex post punishments, carry risks of overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness. Nevertheless, reliance on the ex ante/ex post distinction is not a substitute for the case-by-case application of Pickering. There are many circumstances in which the Government as employer is likely to prefer the codification of its policies as workplace rules (which, incidentally, provide notice to employees) to the ad hoc, on-the-job reactions that have been standard fare in many of our employment cases. In most such circumstances, the Government will be acting well within its bounds. I see little constitutional difference, for example, between a rule prohibiting employees from being " 'rude to customers,' " see Waters, supra, at 673, and the upbraiding or sanctioning of an employee post hoc for isolated acts of impudence. To draw the line based on a distinction between ex ante rules and ex post punishments, in my view, overgeneralizes and threatens undue interference with "the government's mission as employer," 511 U. S., at 674.
Given the breadth and intrusiveness of the honoraria ban in this case, however, I agree with the Court that significant weight must be placed on the employees' side of the scale in the Pickering balance. We recognized in Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 115 (1991), that the imposition of financial burdens may have a direct effect on incentives to speak. See also Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 585 (1983) (observing that the threat of burdensome taxes "can operate as effectively as a censor to check critical comment"). Although the honoraria ban certainly does not curtail all of the non-work-related speech
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