Bryan Pesta v. Laura Bloomberg, Individually and as President, Cleveland State University, et al.

Whether in government employee speech cases the State must clear the Sullivan malice hurdle before proceeding to balancing, as this Court originally held in Pickering? Whether the Sullivan malice standard answers the question left open in Garcetti regarding academic freedom in a state university? Whether balancing was properly weighed here under any conceivable test, where no consideration was given to the fact that petitioner had produced a landmark scientific study within his field, but was stripped of tenure and fired anyway, allegedly for breaking obscure research rules for which respondents themselves were equally at fault, and for which violation no real disruption was demonstrated?