Freedom Foundation v. Washington Department of Ecology, et al.

The Washington Department of Ecology invites union representatives and other visitors to the agency’s main lobby to communicate with employees on matters generally related to the agency’s mission and employee interests, including union membership. In response to Freedom Foundation’s efforts to educate state workers about their constitutional rights to decline union membership, the agency revised its visitor policy to bar the Freedom Foundation from communicating to workers in the agency’s main lobby while continuing to allow representatives of the Washington Federation of State Employees to use the lobby to encourage employees to join the union. A split panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the policy. Does state action that supports speech by public employee unions to public employees advocating union membership and disfavors speech by right-towork advocates to the same public employees on the same topic constitute viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment?