Slochower v. Board of Higher Education of New York City

Slochower v. Board of Higher Education of New York City (1956) stands for the legal proposition that laws pertaining to public employees, including faculty members at public colleges and universities, cannot inferentially treat employees' assertions of Fifth Amendment privilege not to speak for fear of self-incrimination as automatically equivalent to legal wrongdoing. In Slochower, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a municipal law that required termination of employment for city workers who sought to raise their privilege against self-incrimination in order to avoid responding to questions relating to their official duties. The Court determined that had the law been enforced, it would have violated their right to due process. In light of the issues that Slochower raises about the due process rights of faculty members to ...