More merits and standing overlaps

The Third Circuit rejected a First Amendment challenge to Pennsylvania's anti-discrimination/anti-harassment PR rule (ABA Model Rule 8.4(g)), concluding that the lawyer plaintiff (Zachary Greenberg) lacked standing. Given the definitions of harassment and discrimination, the plaintiff's planned speech (teaching CLE classes in which he would oppose hate-speech bans, repeat racist epithets in discussing cases, support due process protections for people accused of sexual misconduct, and support the right to express intolerant racist views) did not violate the rule and did not face a credible threat of enforcement.

This strikes me as good illustration of standing constitutionalizing an obvious merits issue. The plaintiff did not suffer an injury because his planned speech did not violate the rule and thus he did not risk liability for it. But that is the same as saying the rule does not violate his First Amendment rights by imposing liability on him for his protected speech. In fact, that is how the First Amendment would be raised and adjudicated in an enforcement action--the state initiates disciplinary proceedings against Greenberg; Greenberg defends by arguing that his speech does not constitute harassment or discrimination or that if it does, the statute is constitutionally invalid because his speech is protected by the First Amendment; and the disciplinary proceeding fails on the merits (either before the Bar or before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court).

If that analysis goes to the merits in an enforcement action, it should go to the merits (and not jurisdiction) in a pre-enforcement action. A pre-enforcement action allows a rights-holder to determine her substantive rights without having to violate the law and risk sanction. That pre-enforcement action should mirror the enforcement action. If jurisdiction is not an issue in one, it should not be in the other. The counter might that the question of the scope of the law and whether it reaches speech (the first defense in an enforcement proceeding, independent of the constitutionally protected nature of the speech) is a question of state law and that the federal court lacks jurisdiction to address state law. But courts do not fine-grain the standing analysis in that way.

Greenberg tried to argue that he would alter his speech based "on his perception of the social climate, which he sees as infested by '[w]idespread illiberal impulses for ‘safetyism,’”" citing studies of public distaste for offensive speech. But the court refused to find injury, traceable to the rule, from Greenberg's discomfort in speaking freely or in losing professional reputation, job opportunities, and speaking opportunities. This is important. The PR rules should not sanction lawyers for protected-but-obnoxious speech. The First Amendment should have nothing to say about social consequences for being publicly obnoxious.