The U. S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that an elected public college official in Texas was not was not protected from censure through the First Amendment. The man’s colleagues on a community college board censured him for suing them, setting up robocalls against them and hiring an investigator to prove one didn’t live in the college district. Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote that a verbal censure was not a free speech violation, that in any case, it did not impede his ability to speak freely. (The Free Speech Center, March 25, 2022, by The Associated Press)
Gorsuch wrote that the proper response for the college official was to keep criticizing. “In this country, we expect elected representatives to shoulder a degree of criticism about their public service from their constituents and their peers — and to continue exercising their free speech rights when the criticism comes.” (The Washington Post, March 24, 2022, by Robert Barnes)