Clements v. Fashing

Justice Brennan,

with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Blackmun join, and with whom Justice White joins as to Part I, dissenting.

In rejecting appellees’ equal protection challenge on the basis that the State is proceeding “one step at a time,” the plurality today gives new meaning to the term “legal fic*977tion.”1 The Court’s summary dismissal of appellees’ First Amendment claim vastly oversimplifies the delicate accommodations that must be made between the interests of the State as employer and the constitutionally protected rights of state employees. I dissent.

t — 4

Putting to one side the…