Can You Be Denied aLicense for Criticizing the Police?
pa href=https://www.cato.org/people/trevor-burrus hreflang=undTrevor Burrus/a/p
pJoshua Gray is anbsp;private investigator in Massachusetts who would like to also work in his home state of Maine. When he applied for anbsp;license in Maine, however, he was denied because of anbsp;Facebook post criticizing conduct of Maine police after anbsp;controversial shooting of two people. Gray also a href=https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/killed-maine-controversial-police-shooting-joshua-graycommented/a on the shooting on LinkedIn where he discussed his own history with one of the officers involved in the shooting./p
pWhen he applied for anbsp;private investigator license, the Maine Department of Public Safety went through his Facebook post and determined that he lacked the “good moral character” to be anbsp;PI. They accused him of making “factual errors,” some of which he acknowledged and corrected and some that weren’t “factual” claims at all but merely his opinion./p
pThe department seems to be punishing Gray for his speech criticizing the department itself. Moreover, Gray spoke out on anbsp;controversial issue of public concern, which certainly implicates the First Amendment. Represented by our friends at the Institute for Justice, a href=https://ij.org/case/gray-v-maine-dept-of-public-safety/Gray filed suit/a. The Maine Supreme Court upheld the denial of anbsp;license by completely deferring to the department’s claims about what was anbsp;factual error and whether the errors were serious enough to deny Gray anbsp;license./p
pThe Maine Supreme Court’s decision is troubling for anbsp;variety of reasons. Around 20 percent of workers need anbsp;license to work, and most of those licenses have a “good moral character” requirement that is nebulous and easily subject to abuse, especially if courts constantly defer to the licensing agency. Fortunately, the Supreme Court recently ruled, in emNational Institute of Family amp;nbsp;Life Advocates v. Becerra/em, that professional speech is fully protected by the First Amendment. At minimum, that means that courts can’t blindly defer to anbsp;licensing agency’s determination of what is “good moral character” when speech is involved. /p
pGray has petitioned the Supreme Court for review and Cato has a href=https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2021-10/gray-v-maine-dps.pdffiled an amicus brief /asupporting his case. We argue that heightened judicial scrutiny must apply when good moral character requirements are triggered by speech on public issues. The First Amendment protects not only the right to express oneself, but the free flow of those thoughts in the proverbial marketplace of ideas. If state licensing boards can weaponize good moral character requirements to silence speech critical of government, the First Amendment is indeed nothing more than anbsp;parchment guarantee./p