07-16-2025
John Labriola was a media aide for the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners. During non-work hours and just in his name, Labriola wrote an article critical of a proposed bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. He asserted the bill would present small-business employers with a choice between “either baking that sodomy cake and hiring the scary-looking, child-molesting tranny with a beard or being drowned in legal bills and driven out of business.” Labriola wrote several more derogatory assertions about LGBTQ community members, equating them with pedophiles. The Miami Herald called it a “slur-lade tirade against transgender people.”
The County received many calls from concerned residents. Thus, Labriola’s supervisor suspended him for three days and ordered him to receive training regarding the County’s anti-discrimination policies. Labriola never scheduled the training, and the County fired him. He sued, alleging his firing violated his First Amendment rights. He stated the County retaliated against him for engaging in protected speech, and the required training was “compelled speech” because it would make him say things with which he disagreed.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Labriola’s case. The court applied the Pickering-Connick test, balancing a public employee’s free speech rights against the employer’s operational interests. Labriola’s column caused significant disruption in the workplace. His co-workers were very disturbed by it, causing an impairment in trust. His supervisor testified that she had “lost confidence in him” and felt she could no longer openly discuss sensitive matters with him. According to the court, the fact that Labriola’s article was penned while he was off-duty and away from work met the time and place prongs of the test. However, the piece was “disrespectful, demeaning, rude, and insulting,” which weighed heavily against him. Labriola also failed to provide evidence that the county’s required training constituted required speech, as it merely listed sexual orientation and gender identity as just two of the many protected classes.