Cite as: 539 U. S. 194 (2003)
Stevens, J., dissenting
comply with an identical rule. An abridgment of speech by means of a threatened denial of benefits can be just as pernicious as an abridgment by means of a threatened penalty.
Our cases holding that government employment may not be conditioned on the surrender of rights protected by the First Amendment illustrate the point. It has long been settled that "Congress could not 'enact a regulation providing that no Republican, Jew or Negro shall be appointed to federal office, or that no federal employee shall attend Mass or take any active part in missionary work.' " Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 191-192 (1952). Neither discharges, as in Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347, 350-351 (1976), nor refusals to hire or promote, as in Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U. S. 62, 66-67 (1990), are immune from First Amendment scrutiny. Our precedents firmly rejecting "Justice Holmes' famous dictum, that a policeman 'may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman,' " Board of Comm'rs, Wabaunsee Cty. v. Umbehr, 518 U. S. 668, 674 (1996), draw no distinction between the penalty of discharge from one's job and the withholding of the benefit of a new job. The abridgment of First Amendment rights is equally unconstitutional in either context. See Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 404 (1963) ("Governmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon the free exercise of religion as would a fine . . . . It is too late in the day to doubt that the liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon a benefit or privilege").
The issue in this case does not involve governmental attempts to control the speech or views of its employees. It involves the use of its treasury to impose controls on an important medium of expression. In an analogous situation, we specifically held that when "the Government seeks to use an existing medium of expression and to control it, in a class of cases, in ways which distort its usual functioning," the distorting restriction must be struck down under the First
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