Richard S. Schneiter v. Kevin Carr

In the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-2137
RICHARD S. SCHNEITER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
KEVIN CARR, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Wisconsin.
No. 21-cv-135 — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge.
____________________
ARGUED FEBRUARY 23, 2023 — DECIDED JULY 31, 2025
____________________
Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and LEE, Circuit
Judges.
SYKES, Chief Judge. Richard Schneiter worked for the Wis-
consin Department of Corrections for more than 40 years,
rising through the ranks to become deputy warden of the
state’s minimum-security facilities. His tenure reached an
unexpected end when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report-
ed that he had posted offensive internet memes on his
Facebook page. The posts denigrated Muslims, blacks,

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2 No. 22-2137
liberals, and the LGBTQ community, and one referred to the
Confederate flag as “our flag.”
Department officials commenced an investigation and
eventually fired Schneiter, explaining that his offensive
Facebook posts created security concerns, diminished public
trust in the Department, and cast doubt on his ability to
perform the duties of his leadership position respectfully
and without bias. Schneiter sued the Secretary of Corrections
and other officials alleging that he was fired in retaliation for
his online speech and without due process in violation of his
rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The
district judge entered summary judgment for the defend-
ants, ruling that the Department’s interests as a public
employer outweighed Schneiter’s speech interests under the
balancing test established in Pickering v. Board of Education of
Township High School District 205, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). On the
due-process claim, the judge held that the Department
provided adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard
before proceeding with the termination.
We affirm. Our cases recognize that law-enforcement and
corrections agencies need substantial latitude to determine
whether an employee’s speech undermines the effective
operation of governmental functions. See, e.g., Volkman v.
Ryker, 736 F.3d 1084, 1092 (7th Cir. 2013). That principle
weighs heavily here. The Department’s interests as a public
employer—namely, its duty to maintain security and disci-
pline in state correctional facilities—outweighs Schneiter’s
interest in posting this material on Facebook. The due-
process claim is likewise meritless. Schneiter complains that
the Department did not give its employees notice that their
social-media posts might jeopardize their jobs. But public

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No. 22-2137 3
employers are not constitutionally required to adopt specific
policies about social-media use before they may discipline
employees for social-media activities that may interfere with
their job duties. And Schneiter otherwise received sufficient
notice and an opportunity to be heard before he was fired.
I. Background
Schneiter’s lengthy tenure with Wisconsin’s Department
of Corrections began in 1977 when he was hired as an entry-
level correctional officer. He gradually moved up the career
ladder and in 2011 was promoted to the significant leader-
ship position of deputy warden for the Wisconsin Correc-
tional Center System. Situated within the Department’s
Division of Adult Institutions, the Correctional Center
System encompasses a network of 14 minimum-security
prisons scattered throughout Wisconsin. Schneiter’s respon-
sibilities included monitoring operations at the facilities;
hiring, training, and supervising employees; settling griev-
ances; ensuring policy compliance; and serving as a liaison
for the system. About 20% of his duties involved communi-
cating with inmates and 10% involved interacting with
community members and government bodies; the rest of his
time was spent on his managerial responsibilities as the head
of the system.
As Schneiter’s long list of management duties suggests,
the Department classifies a deputy warden as a high-level
official. Throughout this 40-year tenure with the Depart-
ment, he was never disciplined for his performance. Quite
the opposite: he was consistently recognized as a stellar
employee.

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4 No. 22-2137
Over the course of several weeks in June 2019, Schneiter
posted on his Facebook page five internet memes touching
on issues of race, religion, and gay rights in particularly
inflammatory and degrading ways. We don’t need to get
bogged down in the parties’ varied interpretations of the
memes; it’s enough to say that they mocked, belittled, and
promoted dehumanizing assumptions about black people,
Muslims, and gay people.
Before turning to the details, we pause to note that
Schneiter—or possibly his son—deleted the posts from his
Facebook page sometime after they attracted public scrutiny.
Since then, no one involved in this case has successfully
accessed the posts in their original form, so the record
contains only partial screenshots. As Schneiter recalls the
posts, the screenshots omit crucial details. Some screenshots,
for example, cut off the lower portion of the posts, so we
can’t tell whether Schneiter or any of his Facebook friends
left comments and, if so, what was said. The cropped screen-
shots similarly hide whether anyone “reacted” to the posts—
i.e., responded with an icon. And one post lacks a date and
time stamp. Finally, it’s not entirely clear if Schneiter created
any of the memes himself or if all were initially posted by
others and “shared” by Schneiter. With these qualifiers in
mind, we turn to the memes.
The first one was posted on June 7. Schneiter did not cre-
ate this meme himself; he instead “shared” a meme initially
published by an account entitled “Keep America Great.”
Here is a screenshot:

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No. 22-2137 5
The next meme was posted on June 21, two weeks later.
The “pause” and “volume” symbols in the lower corners
suggest that this one may have been posted as a video rather
than as a still image:
On June 22 Schneiter posted two memes. Here is the first:

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6 No. 22-2137
An account called “Rowdy Conservatives” initially posted
the next meme, and Schneiter shared it to his Facebook page
minutes later:
The final meme was presumably posted sometime in
June, though it lacks a date stamp. It’s a photo of a Muslim
woman and child wearing black burqas standing next to two
full black garbage bags. The text accompanying the photo
compared the Muslim child to garbage. Unlike the others,
the screenshot of this meme includes comments showing
that two people posted emojis “reacting” to it—one with a
“thumbs up” and the other with a “sad face.”

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No. 22-2137 7
One additional datapoint about Schneiter’s social-media
posts: his Facebook page had been set as “private.” In other
words, he had blocked the general public from accessing his
page, allowing only those designated as his Facebook
“friends” to view his posts. That’s not to say that his online
audience was small; he had approximately 1,200 Facebook
friends, including many employees of the Department of
Corrections.
Sometime soon after Schneiter posted the last of these
memes, an anonymous tipster leaked them to the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel. On July 16 a Journal Sentinel reporter called
and emailed Schneiter asking about his reasons for posting
the memes and whether they represented his personal
views. Responding early the next morning, Schneiter sent
the reporter the following message from his government
email address: “I repost different things on Facebook that
are certainly not always my opinion but show the different
opinions of others to bring awareness to issues.” Schneiter
also talked with the reporter on the phone later that day.
After the interview, Schneiter immediately alerted his

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8 No. 22-2137
supervisor that the Journal Sentinel planned to publish a
story about the posts that day.
And so it did. On July 17, 2019, the Journal Sentinel pub-
lished an article with the headline: “Deputy Prison Warden
Posts Facebook Meme that Compares Muslim Children to
Garbage.” The article explained Schneiter’s background,
described the five controversial memes, and included
screenshots of some of them. The reporter included several
quotes from Schneiter, who explained that his posts were
being misinterpreted and that he only wanted to engage in
discussions on controversial issues.
The article also included a response from a Department
of Corrections spokeswoman who said that agency officials
were unaware of Schneiter’s Facebook posts and would
investigate. She also said the Department was committed to
maintaining an “environment free of discrimination, har-
assment, and retaliation.” Finally, the article included a
Twitter post from the Lieutenant Governor responding to
the controversy; he criticized the posts as bigoted and stated
in part that Schneiter “ha[d] to be taken out.”
On July 17 Makda Fessahaye, the Administrator of the
Division of Adult Institutions, placed Schneiter on paid
administrative leave and initiated an investigation. In the
meantime, the Department received emails from three
community members, each expressing disgust with
Schneiter’s posts; two specifically requested that he be fired.
Fessahaye assigned investigators Tory Enger and Chris-
tine Preston to look into the matter, and they interviewed
Schneiter a week after the article was published. During the
interview, Schneiter admitted to posting the memes but

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No. 22-2137 9
claimed that he did so only “to get a conversation started.”
He also acknowledged that standing alone, the memes
“could be construed as discriminatory.”
About a week later, Schneiter emailed Enger and Preston
asking them to interview several current and former De-
partment employees who were his Facebook “friends.” The
investigators interviewed two from Schneiter’s list: Chris
Buesgen and Wes Ray. Ray acknowledged that he was
Schneiter’s Facebook friend but said he was not familiar
with the posts. Buesgen explained that Schneiter was an avid
Facebook user who posted primarily about politics. Buesgen
didn’t find the posts offensive, but he agreed that they could
“open[] doors to controversies.” The investigators also
interviewed Quala Champagne, Schneiter’s supervisor, and
Stephanie Hove, the Assistant Administrator of the Division
of Adult Institutions. Champagne and Hove worried that
Schneiter’s conduct would have a negative effect on the
Department and undermine its institutional values.
Enger and Preston submitted a written summary of their
investigation on August 9. In brief, they concluded that
Schneiter had violated three work rules. First, his unauthor-
ized email exchange and phone interview with the Journal
Sentinal reporter violated the Department’s policy concern-
ing unapproved media interviews; that, in turn, violated
Rule 2, which requires employees to “comply with written
agency policies and procedures.” Second, by posting the
memes to his Facebook page, Schneiter violated Rule 14,
which in relevant part prohibits “[i]ntimidating, … harass-
ing, demeaning, treating discourteously, or bullying” others,
or using “abusive language in dealing with others.” Third,
the Facebook posts violated Rule 25, which bars employees

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10 No. 22-2137
from engaging in “outside activities” that “may impair the
employee’s independence of judgment or … ability to
perform his/her duties as an employee of the state.”
An “Infraction Review Team” reviewed the report and
agreed with the investigators’ conclusions. Fessahaye was a
member of this review team in her capacity as Administrator
of the Division of Adult Institutions.
The next step was a “predisciplinary” meeting, which
Schneiter attended with his personal representative. After
presenting their findings, Enger and Preston invited
Schneiter to offer any mitigating information. Reading from
a prepared statement, Schneiter discussed his professional
accomplishments and contextualized the posts. He claimed
that he had attached a comment to the meme of the Muslim
woman and child that he contended “clearly indicated” his
disagreement with the “nature of th[e] meme,” though he
had no evidence to substantiate this claim because he had
deleted the post. Schneiter explained that he posted the flag
meme shortly after Wisconsin’s governor decided to fly the
LGBTQ flag at the state capitol. He said he feared that other
organizations may “push to have their flag[s] displayed.”
The remaining memes, he asserted, were not at all inappro-
priate; he said each one “provided a message” that he felt
“needed to be expressed.” His personal representative
echoed that position, saying that Schneiter was simply
“[s]tarting a conversation about difficult topics that we face
today in society.”
A “Disciplinary Action Review Team,” which again in-
cluded Fessahaye, then reviewed the matter and determined
an appropriate disciplinary response. The team recommend-
ed that the Department terminate Schneiter’s employment.

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No. 22-2137 11
A “Management Advisory Team” of upper-level manag-
ers—including Kari Beier, the Director of the Bureau of
Personnel and Human Resources—reviewed and approved
the termination recommendation.
In early November Beier presented the recommendation
to Kevin Carr and Amy Pechacek, the Department Secretary
and Deputy Secretary at the time. They agreed that
Schneiter’s posts had damaged the Department’s credibility,
undermined its mission, and exacerbated safety concerns in
the corrections facilities. They approved the recommenda-
tion to fire him, and Pechacek signed a disciplinary routing
slip confirming that the Secretary’s Office had approved the
decision to skip the usual disciplinary track and proceed
directly to termination. That decision required review by the
Division of Personnel Management, which promptly ap-
proved it.
On November 8, 2019, Pechacek sent Schneiter a letter
informing him of the termination decision. In addition to the
specific rules violations we’ve already discussed, the letter
identified several general reasons for the decision to fire
him. We mention the main ones: (1) Schneiter’s postings
impaired his ability to perform his duties as a deputy war-
den, in part because he had “referenced the Confederate flag
as ‘our’ flag”; (2) he had denigrated “minorities, Muslims
and the LGBTQ community,” casting public doubt on his
ability to lead and to treat others “fairly and impartially”; (3)
the posts harmed the Department’s “strong working rela-
tionships within a diverse workforce” and risked interfer-
ence with recruitment; (4) Schneiter’s expressions of
“animus” created safety concerns in correctional facilities;
and (5) given his high-level position, Schneiter’s postings

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12 No. 22-2137
drew a greater degree of negative attention to the Depart-
ment. The disciplinary reviewers did not accept Schneiter’s
claim that he posted the memes only “to spark conversation”
and “bring attention” to controversial topics; he provided no
evidence to support that assertion.
Schneiter sought reinstatement through the administra-
tive grievance procedures available under Wisconsin law.
When those remedies proved unsuccessful, he filed an
administrative appeal with the Wisconsin Employment
Relations Commission alleging that the Department had
fired him without just cause. A hearing examiner upheld the
Department’s decision, the Commission issued a formal
order to that effect, and Schneiter unsuccessfully sought
judicial review in state court.
While pursuing his state remedies, Schneiter also filed
this federal suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that he was
fired in violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of
speech and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due pro-
cess.1 Seeking damages, declaratory relief, and injunctive
relief (including reinstatement), the complaint named four
high-level Department officials as defendants: Secretary
Carr, Deputy Secretary Pechacek, Makda Fessahaye (the
Administrator of the Division of Adult Institutions), and
Kari Beier (the Director of the Bureau of Personnel and
Human Resources).
The defendants moved for summary judgment on all
claims, and the district judge granted the motion across the
1 Schneiter also brought a claim for violation of his right to freedom of
speech under the Wisconsin Constitution. He abandoned that claim on
appeal.

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No. 22-2137 13
board. On the First Amendment claim, the judge applied the
Pickering balancing test and concluded that the Department’s
interests as a public employer outweighed Schneiter’s
speech interest in posting the memes to his social-media
page. Schneiter’s due-process claim rested largely on his
argument that the Department could not discipline him in
the absence of a specific policy about employee social-media
use. The judge rejected that theory and concluded that
Schneiter had received constitutionally adequate notice and
an opportunity to be heard before he was fired.
II. Discussion
We review the summary-judgment order de novo, con-
struing the evidence in the light most favorable to Schneiter
as the nonmoving party and drawing all reasonable infer-
ences in his favor. Munson v. Newbold, 46 F.4th 678, 681 (7th
Cir. 2022). We begin by addressing which forms of relief are
still at issue on appeal. As we’ve noted, Schneiter initially
sought declaratory and injunctive relief in addition to dam-
ages. At oral argument his attorney withdrew the requests
for declaratory and injunctive relief, emphasizing that the
case had been narrowed to a request for damages.2
2 Before oral argument we worried about a potential clash between the
state and federal litigation and raised a concern about abstention; we
asked counsel to be prepared to address that question. With Schneiter’s
concessions at oral argument, abstention is no longer a concern. In state
court Schneiter pursued state administrative remedies and sought
reinstatement. With the narrowing of the federal litigation to the two
federal constitutional claims and a request for damages as the sole
remedy, there is no conflict or duplication.

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14 No. 22-2137
With only monetary relief now in play, the doctrine of
qualified immunity rises to the surface. Qualified immunity
shields public officials from civil damages liability, protect-
ing “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly
violate the law.” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015)
(quotation marks omitted). The qualified-immunity inquiry
has two steps: We ask first whether the defendants “violated
a federal statutory or constitutional right” and second
whether “the unlawfulness of their conduct was ‘clearly
established at the time.’” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583
U.S. 48, 63 (2018) (quoting Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658,
664 (2012)). Both conditions must be satisfied to pierce the
immunity and subject a government official to damages
liability.
The defendants preserved the qualified-immunity de-
fense, but the district judge did not specifically address it.
That was understandable. Schneiter initially sought equita-
ble relief in addition to damages, so the judge zeroed in on
the merits of the constitutional claims and found for the
defendants across the board. That made the second step in
the qualified-immunity framework unnecessary. Because we
agree that Schneiter’s constitutional claims fail on the merits,
there’s no need to say anything more about qualified im-
munity.
A. Free-Speech Retaliation Claim
To prevail on a First Amendment retaliation claim, a
public-employee plaintiff must prove that (1) he engaged in
constitutionally protected speech; (2) he suffered a depriva-
tion likely to deter protected speech; and (3) his “protected
speech was a motivating factor in the deprivation.” Harnish-
feger v. United States, 943 F.3d 1105, 1112 (7th Cir. 2019). The

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No. 22-2137 15
second and third elements are not at issue here. It’s undis-
puted that Schneiter was fired for his Facebook posts; the
loss of his job is a substantial deprivation and causation is
conceded. The free-speech claim thus turns on the threshold
inquiry, which asks whether Schneiter’s First Amendment
rights are implicated at all.
The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on the First
Amendment rights of public employees has long rejected the
idea that simply “answering the call to public service” strips
a citizen of his free-speech rights. Kingman v. Frederickson, 40
F.4th 597, 601 (7th Cir. 2022). After all, “a citizen who works
for the government is nonetheless a citizen.” Garcetti v.
Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 419 (2006). Still, the Court has recog-
nized the fundamental difference between the government’s
general role as a regulator and its role as an employer.
Accordingly, free-speech doctrine gives the government a
freer hand in regulating the speech of its employees. “Gov-
ernment employers, like private employers, need a signifi-
cant degree of control over their employees’ words and
actions; without it, there would be little chance for the
efficient provision of public services.” Id. at 418. According-
ly, the Court has held that the Constitution tolerates greater
restrictions on public-employee speech, but it does so only to
the extent “necessary for [public] employers to operate
efficiently and effectively.” Id. at 419.
Emerging from these competing aims is a two-step in-
quiry for evaluating whether a public employee’s speech is
constitutionally protected. At the first step, the employee
must establish that he “spoke as a citizen on a matter of
public concern.” Id. at 418. “If a public employee speaks
pursuant to [his or her] official duties,” then the First

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16 No. 22-2137
Amendment offers no protection because “that kind of
speech is—for constitutional purposes at least—the govern-
ment’s own speech.” Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist., 597 U.S.
507, 527 (2022) (alteration in original) (internal quotation
marks omitted). Schneiter’s Facebook posts were not the
Department’s speech; that much is undisputed. The district
judge therefore passed over this point and assumed that the
posts qualify as citizen speech on a matter of public concern.
Everyone accepts that determination for purposes of appeal,
and we agree.
Where, as here, the public employee spoke as a citizen on
a matter of public concern, then his speech falls within a
zone of possible constitutional protection. At that point the
doctrinal inquiry requires “a delicate balancing of the com-
peting interests surrounding the speech and its consequenc-
es.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 423.
This balancing test originates from the Supreme Court’s
decision in Pickering. There the Court explained that the goal
of the employee-speech doctrine is to weigh “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.” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568. “Because
of the enormous variety of fact situations in which” employ-
ee speech risks harm to a public employer, the Court has
declined “to lay down a general standard against which”
employee speech “may be judged.” Id. at 569.
Our cases applying Pickering have articulated a nonexclu-
sive list of seven factors that may be relevant to the balance
of interests:

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No. 22-2137 17
(1) whether the speech would create problems
in maintaining discipline or harmony among
co-workers; (2) whether the employment rela-
tionship is one in which personal loyalty and
confidence are necessary; (3) whether the
speech impeded the employee’s ability to per-
form her responsibilities; (4) the time, place,
and manner of the speech; (5) the context in
which the underlying dispute arose; (6) wheth-
er the matter was one on which debate was vi-
tal to informed decisionmaking; and
(7) whether the speaker should be regarded as
a member of the general public.
Harnishfeger, 943 F.3d at 1115 (quoting Kristofek v. Village of
Orland Hills, 832 F.3d 785, 796 (7th Cir. 2016)).
As we’ve noted, however, it’s not necessary to consider
each of these factors in every case, and “merely counting
how many factors line up on each side is not particularly
informative.” Darlingh v. Maddaleni, 142 F.4th 558, 566 (7th
Cir. 2025) (quotation marks omitted). Because Pickering calls
for a context-sensitive inquiry, our seven-factor list is neither
a doctrinal touchstone nor a straightjacket. Id. Rather, it is
sometimes “more meaningful to focus on the specific con-
siderations that bear weight in evaluating the competing
interests” in the case at hand. Id.
We take that approach here, starting with the interests on
Schneiter’s side of the scale. He posted the memes on his
personal Facebook page during nonwork hours, and neither
his Facebook profile nor the posts specifically identified his
public employment. Moreover, although the posts were not
“private” in the conventional sense—they were shared with

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18 No. 22-2137
about 1,200 people—it remains true that only those whom
Schneiter had included in his group of Facebook “friends”
could view them. So the speech at issue in this case was
essentially personal and not on its face linked to Schneiter’s
state corrections job.
Schneiter has repeatedly denied that he posted the
memes with any “offensive or discriminatory intent.” By his
account, his aims were to criticize political parties for “tak-
ing voters for granted”; to “show how Facebook inconsist-
ently removes posts”; to “draw attention” to the risks of
flying select flags; and to confront those who arbitrarily
“level charges of racism.” Expressing no view on these
claims, we nonetheless acknowledge their connection to
contested political and cultural issues.
We turn, then, to the Department’s countervailing inter-
ests. They are significant. Our circuit’s Pickering caselaw
gives special solicitude to public employers in the law-
enforcement and correctional contexts because “safety and
order” are of “paramount concern[].” Volkman, 736 F.3d at
1092. Recognizing the limits of our own institutional compe-
tence, we generally defer to the judgments of law-
enforcement and correctional officials regarding “the disrup-
tive nature of an employee’s speech.” Lalowski v. City of Des
Plaines, 789 F.3d 784, 792 (7th Cir. 2015). Put more explicitly,
law-enforcement and correctional agencies have “more
latitude” in their personnel and disciplinary decisions than
“ordinary government employer[s].” Kokkinis v. Ivkovich, 185
F.3d 840, 845 (7th Cir. 1999) (quotation marks omitted). The
correctional context looms large in this case.
Though Schneiter disclaimed any discriminatory intent,
he conceded in his opening brief that “some of the memes

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No. 22-2137 19
are offensive.” No doubt. Among other things, the memes
compared Muslim children to garbage, suggested that all
Muslims should leave the United States, referred to the
Democratic party as a “plantation,” and aligned with white
supremacists against the LGBTQ community. Public em-
ployers, like their private counterparts, have a significant
interest in ensuring respectful, nondiscriminatory workplac-
es.
More directly to the point here, the Department is a large
state corrections agency that houses a diverse population
and has a diverse workforce. As a deputy warden, Schneiter
was responsible for managing a division of 14 correctional
facilities. Targeting Muslims, black, and gay people,
Schneiter’s posts denigrated populations he was required to
supervise, manage, and lead. The Department reasonably
concluded that Schneiter’s posts risked exacerbating already
high tensions among the inmates and causing “increased
distrust, unrest, or even violence” in its correctional facili-
ties. After all, the Department’s core obligation is to maintain
order and security in its correctional facilities.
The Department was also quite reasonably concerned
that the posts called into question Schneiter’s ability to treat
staff fairly and impartially. And that, in turn, could under-
mine the Department’s efforts to maintain harmonious
workplace relationships, comply with nondiscrimination
requirements and norms, and successfully recruit new staff.
Resisting this conclusion, Schneiter emphasizes that there
is no evidence that his posts caused any disruption. But “a
showing of actual disrupti[on] is not required”; a public
employer may act based on “potential disruption” so long as
its predictions are reasonable. Lalowski, 789 F.3d at 791

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20 No. 22-2137
(quotation marks omitted). And by placing Schneiter on
administrative leave soon after discovering the Facebook
posts, the Department may have prevented a disruptive
reaction in its correctional facilities. See Weicherding v. Riegel,
160 F.3d 1139, 1143 (7th Cir. 1998) (observing that the expe-
ditious suspension of an employee likely avoided racially
motivated disruption).
The Department also has a significant interest in main-
taining public confidence in its services. A public employer’s
reputational interests are a valid part of the balancing in-
quiry. See, e.g., Lalowski, 789 F.3d at 792 (noting that a police
officer “compromised the community’s trust in its police
officers”); Anderson v. Burke Cnty., 239 F.3d 1216, 1221–22
(11th Cir. 2001) (deeming the maintenance of public confi-
dence “a compelling and legitimate government interest”).
Perhaps the weightiest consideration here is the degree of
deference owed to the Department’s own assessment of the
risks to its mission-critical correctional operations. Schneiter
was not just a rank-and-file correctional officer. He held a
high-level office as a deputy warden—a leadership role of
significant trust and confidence, with operational and mana-
gerial responsibility over inmates and staff in 14 correctional
facilities. “When close working relationships are essential to
fulfilling public responsibilities, a wide degree of deference
to the employer’s judgment is appropriate.” Connick v.
Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 151-52 (1983). And as we’ve noted, the
law-enforcement context is especially deserving of deference.
Much more than other public employers, law-enforcement
agencies depend on “order, discipline, and esprit de corps”
for their effective functioning. Kokkinis, 185 F.3d at 845. In
these sorts of “paramilitary” environments—“where safety

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No. 22-2137 21
and order are paramount concerns”—we give considerable
deference to the agency’s own assessment of the risks to
security and discipline. Volkman, 736 F.3d at 1092. Under
these circumstances, the Department’s interests in maintain-
ing order, safety, and discipline in its correctional facilities
outweigh Schneiter’s interest in posting these memes on
social media.
B. Due-Process Claim
Schneiter’s due-process challenge centers on his com-
plaint that the Department lacked a specific policy about
social-media use by employees. He does not call into ques-
tion anything about the termination process itself: he has not
challenged the adequacy of the notice, hearing, and layers of
administrative review he received. Instead, he focuses on the
content of the Department’s work rules. His argument, while
not entirely clear, primarily concerns the substance of the
Department’s work rules, not the process that preceded the
termination of his employment. Though not clearly labeled
as such, his argument resembles a challenge under the void-
for-vagueness doctrine, a subset of the substantive compo-
nent of due process that reflects principles of fair notice and
reasoned enforcement. See FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.,
567 U.S. 239, 253 (2012).
Again, Schneiter has not clearly situated his argument
within this framework. But because he asserts that the
Department’s rules failed to warn him of the possible conse-
quences of his off-duty social-media activity, we treat his
argument as one about vagueness.
Even framed this way, however, Schneiter’s argument is
meritless. True, the work rules the Department cited as the

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22 No. 22-2137
basis for his termination are generic; they prohibit
“[i]ntimidating, interfering with, harassing, demeaning,
treating discourteously, or bullying,” as well as other “out-
side activities” that may impair “independence of judgment”
or the “ability to perform [one’s] duties.” But a public em-
ployer enjoys significant “latitude in crafting reasonable
work regulations for its employees.” Greer v. Amesqua, 212
F.3d 358, 369 (7th Cir. 2000). It may, for example, “prohibit
its employees from being ‘rude to customers,’ a standard
almost certainly too vague when applied to the public at
large.” Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 673 (1994) (plurality
opinion). And we have confirmed that the following rules
provide sufficient warning to employees: “conduct [your-
self] so as not to bring the Department into disrepute,” “treat
… superiors with respect,” and “conform to and promptly
and cheerfully obey all … rules.” Greer, 212 F.3d at 369.
Although these rules were “written in general language,” we
held that they “sufficiently define[d] a range of inappropri-
ate conduct [that] a reasonable employee would under-
stand.” Id. So too here. A reasonable employee would
understand that the Department’s broadly written rules
apply to a wide but sufficiently definite range of conduct.
At bottom, Schneiter seems to argue that a public em-
ployer must promulgate a specific policy about employee
social-media activity before it may discipline an employee
for his social-media posts. The Constitution does not require
that degree of specificity.
Schneiter also makes a brief, undeveloped argument that
the predisciplinary proceedings were influenced by bias
against him. While it’s certainly true that “[a] fair hearing
before a fair and unbiased adjudicator is a basic requirement

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No. 22-2137 23
of due process,” Alston v. Smith, 840 F.3d 363, 368 (7th Cir.
2016), the standard for proving bias is not easily satisfied. A
challenger “must overcome a presumption of honesty and
integrity in those serving as adjudicators.” Withrow v. Larkin,
421 U.S. 35, 47 (1975). This requires “lay[ing] a specific
foundation of prejudice or prejudgment, such that the
probability of actual bias is too high to be constitutionally
tolerable.” Hess v. Bd. of Trs. of S. Ill. Univ., 839 F.3d 668, 675
(7th Cir. 2016). Schneiter has not met this burden. His wholly
speculative and unsupported allegation of bias does not
come close to overcoming the presumption of honesty and
integrity.
Finally, Schneiter highlights aspects of the disciplinary
process that, in his view, failed to comply with state law or
the Department’s own internal policies. Whatever the merits
of these claims, they do not amount to constitutional defi-
ciencies. “[A] failure to follow state statutes or state-
mandated procedures does not amount to a federal due
process claim of constitutional magnitude.” Dietchweiler v.
Lucas, 827 F.3d 622, 629 (7th Cir. 2016).
AFFIRMED

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