By Braden Campbell · Listen to article
Law360 (November 17, 2025, 6:36 PM EST) — California and two teachers’ unions urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to take up a challenge to a state law limiting who gets to know when new public employees have their orientations, disputing that the law discriminates against a group that informs state workers of their right not to be union members.
The state of California called an argument in a certiorari petition by a conservative think tank saying the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of a challenge to a law limiting disclosure of new public employee orientations is in conflict with other circuits’ precedent is “plainly illusory.” (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
In a pair of briefs responding to the Freedom Foundation’s petition for the high court to review a Ninth Circuit ruling rejecting its challenge to the law, the unions and the state argued Friday that the law does not violate the U.S. Constitution by drawing lines based on views, nor does the court’s ruling split with other circuits’ precedent.
“As the court of appeals correctly held, Section 3556 does not regulate on the basis of viewpoint; it limits disclosure of scheduling information for new-employee orientations based on the need to attend,” the state argued.
The briefs came in response to an August petition by the Freedom Foundation calling on the high court to review an unpublished March ruling by the Ninth Circuit rejecting its challenge to a 2018 amendment to Section 3556 of California’s Government Code.
The amendment restricts to whom the state can disclose the date, time and place of new public employees’ work orientations, permitting disclosure only to the hires, their union — if one exists — and vendors that are “contracted to provide a service for purposes of the orientation.”
After the Los Angeles Unified School District refused its January 2023 request for details of upcoming orientations, the Freedom Foundation sued three district employees. The group, which informs public employees of their rights not to join unions, argued that the measure violates the First Amendment by restricting disclosure because of its views and the message it shares.
The Central District of California rejected the group’s challenge in January 2024, saying the statute blocks notice based on the groups’ status and not its protected views or speech, and a unanimous Ninth Circuit panel affirmed that ruling in March. The Freedom Foundation urged the high court to review that ruling in August, arguing that the law discriminates based on its speech and that it conflicts with other precedent, including the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME expanding public workers’ rights not to support unions.
The state, United Teachers Los Angeles and Service Employees International Union Local 99 urged the court not to review the law in parallel briefs Friday, arguing that the law does not sideline the group because of its views and that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling does not conflict with precedent.
The group’s challenge “fails at the outset” because the law does not amount to viewpoint discrimination under Supreme Court precedent, the unions argued. They pointed to language in the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Ariz. stating that governments discriminate based on views when they regulate speech based on “‘the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker.'” The amendment to Section 3556 does not qualify because it does not distinguish “on the information requester’s ideology, opinion or perspective,” they said.
“Section 3556 limits the disclosure of the date, time and location of new-employee orientations to the orientation participants,” the unions said. “The through line between these entities is their status as participants in the orientation, not any shared viewpoint.”
The state called the group’s argument that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling conflicts with other circuits’ precedent “plainly illusory.”
The Freedom Foundation pointed to the Eighth Circuit’s 2020 ruling in Turning Point USA at Arkansas State University v. Rhodes , which affirmed a ruling rejecting a challenge to a restriction on non-student organizations presenting at college campuses. The Eighth Circuit held that this was status-based discrimination, and that such discrimination can amount to viewpoint-based discrimination, but that it did not do so in that case, the state noted. Like the Ninth Circuit, the Eighth Circuit held that the policy was status-based, not viewpoint-based, the state said.
“The court of appeals’ analysis here was similar,” the state said, citing the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. “Section 3556 ‘regulates the dissemination of information based on the receiver’s legal status,’ ‘not the content of their speech or the viewpoint they convey.'”
Nor does the restriction actually hamper the group’s outreach to public workers, the state said. The state noted that the group regularly leaflets outside government buildings and can identify new hires through requests for their names. These avenues appear to work, the state said, pointing to the group’s recent claim that it prompted more than 2,700 California public employees to opt out of union membership in June.
A representative for the unions declined to comment. Representatives of the State and the Freedom Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The state is represented by J. Felix De La Torre, Joseph Eckhart and Jeremy Zeitlin of the State of California Public Employment Relations Board and Rob Bonta, Samuel Harbourt, Helen Hong, Thomas Patterson and Mica Moore of the California Department of Justice.
The unions are represented by Scott Kronland and Juhyung Harold Lee of Altshuler Berzon LLP.
The UTLA is also represented by Ira Gottlieb and Michael Plank of Bush Gottlieb ALC.
SEIU Local 99 is also represented by Glenn Rothner and Daniel Rojas of Rothner Segall & Greenstone.
The Freedom Foundation is represented in-house by Shella Alcabes.
The case is Freedom Foundation v. Rita Gail Turner, case number 25-156, in the U.S. Supreme Court.