## Facts

- Arizona voters adopted Article XXVIII of the state constitution declaring English the official language and directing the state and its subdivisions to preserve and strengthen English.
- Article XXVIII required all government officials and employees, while performing government business, to act only in English, and it authorized private suits to enforce the provision.
- Maria-Kelley F. Yñiguez, a bilingual state employee handling claims, regularly used Spanish with Spanish-speaking members of the public as part of her job.
- After adoption of Article XXVIII, Yñiguez believed she risked discipline if she continued using Spanish during official duties and alleged the measure chilled her speech.
- The district court dismissed the State on Eleventh Amendment grounds, permitted claims against officials and intervenors to proceed, and declared Article XXVIII unconstitutional on its face, enjoining enforcement.
- The Ninth Circuit heard consolidated appeals en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether Article XXVIII’s English-only requirement for officials and employees performing government business violates the First Amendment rights of public employees.
2. Whether Article XXVIII is facially invalid for overbreadth and vagueness because it chills a substantial amount of protected speech.
3. Whether the provision is a permissible regulation of government speech or a content-based restriction on individual speech requiring heightened scrutiny.

## Decision

- The en banc Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment that Article XXVIII was facially unconstitutional.
- The court held the amendment operated as a broad prohibition on non-English speech by public officials and employees during government business, reaching far beyond any legitimate governmental interest.
- The court rejected characterizing the amendment as merely defining the government’s own message; instead, it regulated employees’ speech in everyday interactions with the public.
- The court concluded the amendment’s breadth created a substantial chilling effect and was not narrowly tailored to asserted interests such as efficiency, cost control, or promoting English.

## Legal Principles

- Public employees retain First Amendment protection; the government may regulate employee speech only to the extent justified by operational needs, not through sweeping bans unrelated to performance.
- A language restriction in government operations may function as a content-based, and at times viewpoint-based, speech restriction when it suppresses expression in non-English languages.
- A facial challenge may succeed where a law’s reach substantially burdens protected speech and predictably chills speech due to broad scope and credible enforcement risk.
- The government-speech rationale applicable to defined government programs does not justify a blanket English-only rule governing all government business and all public employees.
- Even where the government has legitimate interests in standardizing official communication, restrictions on speech must be narrowly tailored and may not prohibit substantially more speech than necessary.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held Arizona’s English-only constitutional amendment facially violated the First Amendment because it broadly restricted the speech of public employees and officials based on language, chilled protected communications with the public, and was not narrowly tailored to the state’s asserted interests.


Yñiguez v. Arizonans for Off. Eng., 69 F.3d 920 (9th Cir. 1995) (en banc)