A First Amendment lawsuit brought by journalist Brittany Hailer has forced Allegheny County to revise policies that previously barred its jail employees and contractors from speaking publicly and with members of the news media about matters of public concern without permission, changes that could result in more accountability reporting about the Allegheny County Jail.
In a settlement finalized on Tuesday, Allegheny County agreed to make substantive revisions to several Bureau of Corrections policies, including rules governing employees’ access to the news media and their use of social media, acknowledging “that its employees and contractors have constitutional rights to speak on matters of public concern when acting as private citizens.”
The agreement comes more than eight months after Hailer filed a federal lawsuit challenging the policies with free legal support from attorneys at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic. The lawsuit argued that the policies violated the First Amendment and effectively silenced jail employees, hampering important investigative reporting about issues at the Allegheny County Jail, which in recent years has been the subject of coverage examining the deaths of men incarcerated at the jail, personnel vacancies and turnover, and allegations of deficient medical care.
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