Harald Uhlig, a University of Chicago economist, was terminated from his role as a consultant to the Chicago Fed and placed on leave from his editorial position at the Journal of Political Economy. His transgression? A tweet voicing opposition to defunding the police. The Black Lives Matter movement, said Uhlig, “just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice.” “We need more police, we need to pay them more, we need to train them better,” he added.
Uhlig cited “policy reform proposals” by the Democratic Party as an alternative to defunding. For an overview of the controversy, see David Harsanyi’s column.
We’ve seen many such firings in recent weeks, most prominently at the New York Times and other media outfits. But, to my knowledge, Uhlig is the first public employee to be terminated for commenting on the current protests. The longstanding legal measure of whether a public employer can terminate an employee for expressing an opinion is called the Pickering Connick test. Attorney David Hudson summarizes it as follows:
Public employees must clear two hurdles in order to state a cognizable First Amendment claim alleging they have been discharged for the content of their speech:
- They must show their speech addresses a matter of public concern.
- They must show their free-speech interests outweigh their employer’s efficiency interests.
An employee’s comments on matters unrelated to political or social issues (e.g., a criticism of a workplace policy) are not protected. However, if the employee was fired for comments on political issues, as Uhlig was, his employer must prove that the speech sufficiently interfered with workplace operations as to outweigh the employee’s First Amendment rights.
I suppose there’s a case to be made that Uhlig’s comments would undermine the ever-important credibility of the Fed. In any event, Uhlig does not seem eager to pursue litigation. He told the Wall Street Journal that “Termination of my contract is their prerogative.” Nor would he likely prevail in court. University of Colorado law professor Helen Norton told the ABA journal “that courts increasingly defer to government’s efforts to control its employees’ speech — both on duty and off duty — to protect its own expression.”
In general, I’d prefer that Fed officials and affiliates make no comments at all on matters unrelated to the central bank’s dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices. The more monetary policymakers expound on politics — and even on economic issues not directly related to the conduct of monetary policy — the less independent they appear from political influence.
For his part, Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic said that the “Atlanta Fed stands by those fighting for equality in every form.” And in his FOMC statement last week, Chairman Jay Powell highlighted the economic difficulties of ethnic minorities due to the coronavirus. As I argued last week, these musings erode central-bank independence.