03-3257 McElroy v. Lopac, et al.

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“’[I]nquiries’ into lay-in pay were not protected speech as would be necessary to satisfy a retaliation claim’s requirement of constitutionally protected activity. As in the publicemployee context, McElroy’s questions concerning Lopac’s ‘personal policies’ about lay-in pay must relate to a public concern and not just a personal matter to receive First Amendment protection. See Sasnett v. Litscher, 197 F.3d 290, 292 (7th Cir. 1999) (imputing to inmate free-speech claims requirement of public-employee line of cases that protected speech must be about a ‘public concern’); Brookins v. Kolb, 990 F.2d 308, 313 (7th Cir. 1993) (content of letter written by inmate co-chair of legal assistance committee not protected speech because it related to personal matter, not public concern); see also Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 392 (6th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (‘prisoner’s First Amendment rights are not more extensive than those of a government employee’). But McElroy’s ‘inquiries’ about lay-in pay were a matter of ‘purely individual economic importance’ and not of public concern. Balton v. City of Milwaukee, 133 F.3d 1036, 1040 (7th Cir. 1998); see Snider v. Belvidere Township, 216 F.3d 616, 620 (7th Cir. 2000) (comments about perceived salary disparity vis-á-vis other employees is personal issue, not public concern). McElroy’s speech was not the type of protected activity under the First Amendment that could support a retaliation claim.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Reinhard, J., Per Curiam.