Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
4,614 federal appellate · 1,509 district · 1,257 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12,469 later decisions (202 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Morrissey v. Brewer (1972)
4,614 federal appellate · 1,509 district · 1,257 state decisions — followed in 49 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · Tumey v. State of Ohio · In the Matters of Lee Roy Murchison and John Whites
Cited together with Connick v. Myers · Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle · Rankin v. McPherson · Perry v. Sindermann · Harlow v. Fitzgerald
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 12,469 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the interests of the [employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.”
587 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a teacher's exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment.”
206 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“compelled to relinquish the First Amendment rights they would otherwise enjoy as citizens to comment on matters of public interest in connection with the operation of the public schools in which they work.”
38 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.