Legal Commentary

Here is the Ninth Circuit's decision in McDermott v. Ampersand Publishing.  The district court had ruled that "a significant risk of First Amendment violation" would arise if a newspaper was forced by the NLRB to reinstate employees that the newspaper had fired for certain union-related activities.  The Ninth Circuit agreed.  The court observed:

It is clear that the First Amendment erects a barrier against government interference with a newspaper?s exercise of editorial control over its content. . . .

The union organizing campaign arose in the wake of an xtended dispute between the News-Press management and newsroom employees regarding allegedly biased reporting and newspaper content. . . .

No matter how laudable the goals of the fired reporters in promoting the Union to, as the ALJ put it, ?restore journalistic integrity,? the risk that granting an injunction will infringe the News-Press?s right to publish what it pleases is inescapable. . . .

This decision is intriguing to me, because it would seem to have interesting implications for the debate about the applicability of non-discrimination laws and other general employment regulations to religious institutions.  I would welcome others' thoughts -- especially our own Paul Horwitz's -- about the opinion's premises regarding the role and rights of newspapers.