MR. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

The Lloyd-La Follette Act, 5 U.S.C. § 7501 (a), provides that "[a]n individual in the competitive service may be removed or suspended without pay only for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service." The regulations of the Civil Service Commission and the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), at which appellee was employed, give content to "cause" by specifying grounds for removal which include "any action . . . which might result in . . . [a]ffecting adversely the confidence of the public in the integrity of [OEO and] the Government" and any "criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct, or other conduct prejudicial to the Government."

Aside from specifying the standards for discharges, Congress has also established the procedural frame-work in which the discharge determinations are to be made. The employee is to receive 30 days' advance written notice of the action sought and of any charges preferred against him, a copy of the charges, and a reasonable time for filing a written answer to the charges. Before being terminated he may also make a personal appearance before an agency official, and implementing Civil Service Commission regulations provide that "[t]he right to answer personally includes the right to answer orally in person by being given a reasonable opportunity to make any representations which the employee believes might sway the final decision on his case, but does not include the right to a trial or a formal hearing with examination of witnesses." The regulations further provide that the "representative or representatives designated to hear the answer shall be persons who have authority either to make a final decision on the proposed adverse action or to recommend what final decision should be made." The employee is entitled to notice of the agency's decision in writing, and the notice must inform the employee "[w]hich of the reasons in the notice of proposed adverse action have been found sustained and which have been found not sustained." The employee may appeal from an adverse decision and is entitled to an evidentiary trial-type hearing at this stage. This later hearing affords the employee certain rights not available within OEO at the pretermination stage, particularly the taking of testimony under oath and the cross-examination of witnesses.

Appellee Kennedy was a nonprobationary federal employee in the competitive civil service and held the position of field representative in the Chicago Regional Office of OEO. As such, he was entitled to the protection of the statutes and regulations outlined above. On February 18, 1972, Kennedy received a "Notification of Proposed Adverse Action" from the Regional Director of OEO, Wendell Verduin. The notice charged, among other things, that Kennedy had made slanderous statements about Verduin and another coworker charging them with bribing or attempting to bribe a potential OEO grantee and had thereby caused disharmony in his office by preventing its smooth functioning. Verduin then ruled on March 20, 1972, after Kennedy had filed a written answer objecting to the lack of certain procedures furnished at this pretermination hearing, but had declined to appear personally, that Kennedy be removed from his job with OEO, effective March 27, 1972.

Kennedy then appealed directly to the Civil Service Commission and also instituted the present action. The first count of his complaint alleged that the discharge procedure of the Lloyd-La Follette Act, and the attendant Civil Service Commission regulations, deprived him of due process by failing to provide for a full hearing prior to termination. The second count alleged that he was discharged because of certain conversations, in violation of his rights under the First Amendment. The single judge who reviewed the complaint convened a three-judge court to hear the first count, and dismissed the second, without prejudice to refiling after the Civil Service Commission ruled on his appeal. It was the court's view that it should not act until the agency had the opportunity to review the merits of appellee's First Amendment claim.

After the convening of the three-judge court, appellee amended his complaint, then limited to the due process claim, to include a challenge to the Lloyd-La Follette Act on the grounds that it was vague and overbroad and violated the First Amendment.

The three-judge District Court, convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2282 and 2284, granted summary judgment for appellee. 349 F. Supp. 863. It held that the discharge procedures violated due process because "[t]here was no provision . . . for the decision on removal or suspension to be made by an impartial agency official, or for Kennedy (by his own means) to present witnesses; or for his right to confront adverse witnesses." Id., at 865. The court also held that § 7501 was unconstitutional on vagueness and overbreadth grounds. The Government was ordered to reinstate Kennedy to his former position with backpay and to conduct any future removal proceedings with a hearing consistent with its opinion. Appellants were also enjoined from further enforcement of the Lloyd-La Follette Act, and implementing regulations, as "construed to regulate the speech of competitive service employees." Id., at 866.

I

In my view, three issues must be addressed in this case. First, does the Due Process Clause require that there be a full trial-type hearing at some time when a Federal Government employee in the competitive service is terminated? Secondly, if such be the case, must this hearing be held prior to the discharge of the employee, and, if so, was the process afforded in this case adequate? Third, and as an entirely separate matter, are the Lloyd-La Follette Act and its attendant regulations void for vagueness or overbreadth? I join the Court as to the third issue.

II

I differ basically with the plurality's view that "where the grant of a substantive right is inextricably intertwined with the limitations on the procedures which are to be employed in determining that right, a litigant in the position of appellee must take the bitter with the sweet," and that "the property interest which appellee had in his employment was itself conditioned by the procedural limitations which had accompanied the grant of that interest." Ante, at 153-154, 155. The rationale of this position quickly leads to the conclusion that even though the statute requires cause for discharge, the requisites of due process could equally have been satisfied had the law dispensed with any hearing at all, whether pretermination or post-termination.

The past cases of this Court uniformly indicate that some kind of hearing is required at some time before a person is finally deprived of his property interests. The principles of due process "come to us from the law of England . . . and their requirement was there designed to secure the subject against the arbitrary action of the crown and place him under the protection of the law." Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 123 (1889). The "right to be heard before being condemned to suffer grievous loss of any kind, even though it may not involve the stigma and hardships of a criminal conviction, is a principle basic to our society." Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 168 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).

This basic principle has unwaveringly been applied when private property has been taken by the State. A fundamental requirement of due process is "the opportunity to be heard." Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394 (1914). "It is an opportunity which must be granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner." Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552 (1965). Where the Court has rejected the need for a hearing prior to the initial "taking," a principal rationale has been that a hearing would be provided before the taking became final. See North American Cold Storage Co. v. Chicago, 211 U.S. 306 (1908) (seizure of food unfit for consumption); Central Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U.S. 554 (1921) (seizure of property under Trading with the Enemy Act); Corn Exchange Bank v. Coler, 280 U.S. 218 (1930) (seizure of assets of an absconding husband); Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589 (1931) (collection of a tax); Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503 (1944) (setting of price regulations); Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U.S. 245 (1947) (appointment of conservator of assets of savings and loan association); Ewing v. Mytinger Casselberry, 339 U.S. 594 (1950) (seizure of misbranded articles in commerce). While these cases indicate that the particular interests involved might not have demanded a hearing immediately, they also reaffirm the principle that property may not be taken without a hearing at some time.

This principle has also been applied in situations where the State has licensed certain activities. Where the grant or denial of a license has been involved, and the "right" to engage in business has been legitimately limited by the interest of the State in protecting its citizens from inexpert or unfit performance, the decision of the State to grant or deny a license has been subject to a hearing requirement. See, e.g., Dent v. West Virginia, supra (licensing of physicians); Goldsmith v. United States Board of Tax Appeals, 270 U.S. 117 (1926) (licensing of accountant); Willner v. Committee on Character and Fitness, 373 U.S. 96 (1963) (admission to the bar). The Court has put particular stress on the fact that the absence of a hearing would allow the State to be arbitrary in its grant or denial, and to make judgments on grounds other than the fitness of a particular person to pursue his chosen profession. In the context of admission to the bar, the Court has stated: "Obviously an applicant could not be excluded merely because he was a Republican or a Negro or a member of a particular church. Even in applying permissible standards, officers of a State cannot exclude an applicant when there is no basis for their finding that he fails to meet these standards, or when their action is invidiously discriminatory." Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, 239 (1957). The hearing requirement has equally been applied when the license was to be removed, In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544 (1968), or a licensee has been subject to state regulation, Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n of Ohio, 301 U.S. 292 (1937).

Similar principles prevail when the State affords its process and mechanism of dispute settlement, its law enforcement officers, and its courts, in aiding one person to take property from another. Where there is a "taking" before a final determination of rights, as in some cases when the State seizes property, to protect one of the parties pendente lite, the Court has acted on the assumption that at some time a full hearing will be available, as when there is an attachment of property preliminary to resolution of the merits of a dispute, Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U.S. 94 (1921); Coffin Brothers v. Bennett, 277 U.S. 29 (1928); McKay v. McInnes, 279 U.S. 820 (1929). The opportunity to defend one's property before it is finally taken is so basic that it hardly bears repeating. Adequate notice of the court proceeding must be furnished, Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950), and there must be jurisdiction over the person, Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 (1878).

Since there is a need for some kind of hearing before a person is finally deprived of his property, the argument in the instant case, and that adopted in the plurality opinion, is that there is something different about a final taking from an individual of property rights which have their origin in the public rather than the private sector of the economy, and, as applied here, that there is no need for any hearing at any time when the Government discharges a person from his job, even though good cause for the discharge is required.

In cases involving employment by the Government, the earliest cases of this Court have distinguished between two situations, where the entitlement to the job is conditioned "at the pleasure" of the employer and where the job is to be held subject to certain requirements being met by the employee, as when discharge must be for "cause." The Court has stated: "The inquiry is therefore whether there were any causes of removal prescribed by law . . . . If there were, then the rule would apply that where causes of removal are specified by constitution or statute, as also where the term of office is for a fixed period, notice and hearing are essential. If there were not, the appointing power could remove at pleasure or for such cause as it deemed sufficient." Reagan v. United States, 182 U.S. 419, 425 (1901); Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U.S. 311, 314 (1903). The Court has thus made clear that Congress may limit the total discretion of the Executive in firing an employee, by providing that terminations be for cause, and only for cause, and, if it does so, notice and a hearing are "essential."

Where Executive discretion is not limited, there is no need for a hearing. In the latter event, where the statute has provided that employment was conditioned on "'maintain[ing] the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers,'" Ex parte Secombe, 19 How. 9, 14 (1857) (attorney and counsellor of court), or was subject to no conditions at all, Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 225 (1839) (clerk of the court), no hearing is required. See also Crenshaw v. United States, 134 U.S. 99 (1890) (Navy officer could be removed at will); Parsons v. United States, 167 U.S. 324 (1897) (district attorney could be terminated by the President at his pleasure); Keim v. United States, 177 U.S. 290 (1900) (post office clerks removable at pleasure). To like effect is Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886 (1961), where the Court held that no hearing need be provided to a cook employed by a private concessionaire of the Navy before the Government revoked her security clearance. The revocation of security clearances was within the "unfettered control" of the Navy in order "to manage the internal operation of an important federal military establishment." Id., at 896. The Court there assumed that "Rachel Brawner could not constitutionally have been excluded from the Gun Factory if the announced grounds for her exclusion had been patently arbitrary or discriminatory . . . ." Id., at 898.

Where the Congress has confined Executive discretion, notice and hearing have been required. In Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123 (1951), an organization was put on the Attorney General's list, as disloyal to the United States, without a hearing before the Attorney General. The Executive Order, as defined by implementing regulations, required the Executive to make an "appropriate determination" of disloyalty. It was apparent that members of organizations employed by the Government who belonged to an organization on the Attorney General's list would be in danger of losing their jobs. The Court held, assuming the facts as alleged by the complaints were true, that it would be arbitrary, and not consistent with an "appropriate determination," to deny a hearing on the matter to the affected organizations. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter observed in his concurring opinion, "[t]he heart of the matter is that democracy implies respect for the elementary rights of men, however suspect or unworthy; a democratic government must therefore practice fairness; and fairness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights." Id., at 170.

To some extent, McGrath, and like cases, see Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474 (1959), depended on statutory construction — the intent of Congress to require that procedural fairness be observed in making decisions on security clearances or status, which affected employment — but it is obvious that the constitutional requirements of fairness were a guiding hand to the Court's statutory interpretation. "Where administrative action has raised serious constitutional problems, the Court has assumed that Congress or the President intended to afford those affected by the action the traditional safeguards of due process," and it has been "the Court's concern that traditional forms of fair procedure not be restricted by implication or without the most explicit action by the Nation's lawmakers . . . ." Id., at 507-508.

The concern of the Court that fundamental fairness be observed when the State deals with its employees has not been limited to action which is discriminatory and infringes on constitutionally protected rights, as in Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952); Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551 (1956); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513 (1958); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963). See also Connell v. Higginbotham, 403 U.S. 207 (1971). It has been observed that "constitutional protection does extend to the public servant whose exclusion pursuant to a statute is patently arbitrary or discriminatory." Wieman v. Updegraff, supra, at 192; Slochower v. Board of Education, supra, at 556. (Emphasis added.) In Slochower, supra, New York law provided that a tenured employee taking the Fifth Amendment before a legislative committee inquiring into his official conduct could be fired. Quite apart from the Fifth Amendment "penalty" assessed by the State, the Court was concerned with the arbitrariness of drawing a conclusion, without a hearing, that any employee who took the Fifth Amendment was guilty or unfit for employment. The Court stated:

"This is not to say that Slochower has a constitutional right to be an associate professor of German at Brooklyn College. The State has broad powers in the selection and discharge of its employees, and it may be that proper inquiry would show Slochower's continued employment to be inconsistent with a real interest of the State. But there has been no such inquiry here." Id., at 559.

The Court's decisions in Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972), and Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972), reiterate the notion that the Executive Branch cannot be arbitrary in depriving a person of his job, when the Legislative Branch has provided that a person cannot be fired except for cause, and, if anything, extend the principles beyond the facts of this case.

In Sindermann, a teacher who had held his position for a number of years but was not tenured under contract, alleged that he had de facto tenure under contract law due to "the existence of rules or understandings" with the college which employed him, id., at 602. The Court held that if the professor could prove the existence of a property interest it would "obligate college officials to grant a hearing at his request, where he could be informed of the grounds for his nonretention and challenge their sufficiency." Id., at 603. In Roth, an assistant professor was hired for a fixed term of one academic year, and had no tenure. The Court held that the teacher had no property interest in the job, since the terms of employment allowed that his contract not be renewed. The critical consideration was that the terms "did not provide for contract renewal absent 'sufficient cause.'" 408 U.S., at 578. The rights to continued employment were determined by state law. The Court took great pains, however, to point out that a tenured appointment, providing for entitlement to a job, absent cause, would be a far different case.

These cases only serve to emphasize that where there is a legitimate entitlement to a job, as when a person is given employment subject to his meeting certain specific conditions, due process requires, in order to insure against arbitrariness by the State in the administration of its law, that a person be given notice and a hearing before he is finally discharged. As the Court stated in Dismuke v. United States, 297 U.S. 167, 172 (1936):

"If [the administrative officer] is authorized to determine questions of fact his decision must be accepted unless he exceeds his authority . . . by failing to follow a procedure which satisfies elementary standards of fairness and reasonableness essential to the due conduct of the proceeding which Congress has authorized."

To be sure, to determine the existence of the property interest, as for example, whether a teacher is tenured or not, one looks to the controlling law, in this case federal statutory law, the Lloyd-La Follette Act, which provides that a person can only be fired for cause. The fact that the origins of the property right are with the State makes no difference for the nature of the procedures required. While the State may define what is and what is not property, once having defined those rights the Constitution defines due process, and as I understand it six members of the Court are in agreement on this fundamental proposition.

I conclude, therefore, that as a matter of due process, a hearing must be held at some time before a competitive civil service employee may be finally terminated for misconduct. Here, the Constitution and the Lloyd-La Follette Act converge, because a full trial-type hearing is provided by statute before termination from the service becomes final, by way of appeal either through OEO, the Civil Service Commission, or both.

A different case might be put, of course, if the termination were for reasons of pure inefficiency, assuming such a general reason could be given, in which case it would be at least arguable that a hearing would serve no useful purpose and that judgments of this kind are best left to the discretion of administrative officials. This is not such a case, however, since Kennedy was terminated on specific charges of misconduct.

III

The second question which must be addressed is whether a hearing of some sort must be held before any "taking" of the employee's property interest in his job occurs, even if a full hearing is available before that taking becomes final. I must resolve this question because in my view a full hearing must be afforded at some juncture and the claim is that it must occur prior to termination. If the right to any hearing itself is a pure matter of property definition, as the plurality opinion suggests, then that question need not be faced, for any kind of hearing, or no hearing at all, would suffice. As I have suggested, the State may not dispense with the minimum procedures defined by due process, but different considerations come into play when deciding whether a pretermination hearing is required and, if it is, what kind of hearing must be had.

In passing upon claims to a hearing before preliminary but nonfinal deprivations, the usual rule of this Court has been that a full hearing at some time suffices. "We have repeatedly held that no hearing at the preliminary stage is required by due process so long as the requisite hearing is held before the final administrative order becomes effective." "It is sufficient, where only property rights are concerned, that there is at some stage an opportunity for a hearing and a judicial determination." Ewing v. Mytinger Casselberry, 339 U.S., at 598, 599. See also Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589, 596-597 (1931); Scottish Union National Insurance Co. v. Bowland, 196 U.S. 611, 631-632 (1905); Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586, 593-594 (1881). This has seemingly been the rule whether the State was taking property from the person, as in the above-cited cases, or whether one person was taking it from another through the process of state courts. See Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U.S. 94 (1921); Coffin Brothers v. Bennett, 277 U.S. 29 (1928); McKay v. McInnes, 279 U.S. 820 (1929).

In recent years, however, in a limited number of cases, the Court has held that a hearing must be furnished at the first stage of taking, even where a later hearing was provided. This has been true in the revocation of a state-granted license, Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535 (1971), and in suits between private parties, where summary replevin procedures, Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972), or garnishment procedures, Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969), were attacked, and when the State has sought to terminate welfare benefits, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970).

These conflicting lines of cases demonstrate, as the Court stated in Cafeteria Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S., at 895, that "consideration of what procedures due process may require under any given set of circumstances must begin with a determination of the precise nature of the government function involved as well as of the private interest that has been affected by governmental action." See also Hannah v. Larche, 363 U.S. 420, 440, 442 (1960); Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, at 263. In assessing whether a prior hearing is required, the Court has looked to how the legitimate interests asserted by the party asserting the need for a hearing, and the party opposing it, would be furthered or hindered.

In many cases, where the claim to a pretermination hearing has been rejected, it appears that the legitimate interest of the party opposing the hearing might be defeated outright if such hearing were to be held. For example, when the Government or a private party lays claim to property there is often the danger that the person in possession of the property may alienate or waste it, and the Government or private party may be without recourse. Thus, the Court has held that there is no need for a prior hearing where the Government has taken preliminary custody of alleged enemy property before actual title to the property is determined, Central Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U.S. 554 (1921); Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U.S. 239 (1921), or where a private creditor has sought to attach property of a debtor. See Ownbey v. Morgan, Supra; Coffin Brothers v. Bennett, supra; McKay v. McInnes, supra. Of course, such summary action must be authorized in such a manner as to minimize the possibilities of a mistaken deprivation, by a public official in the case of administrative action, or a judge where the processes of the court are used. Fuentes v. Shevin, supra.

The danger that the purpose of the action may be defeated, or made exceedingly difficult, by requiring a prior hearing, is illustrated by North American Cold Storage Co. v. Chicago, 211 U.S. 306 (1908), where the Court sustained the constitutionality of an Illinois statute permitting health inspectors to enter cold-storage houses and "forthwith seize, condemn and destroy" unfit food. The defendants in the action claimed that while it may be necessary to seize the food pending a hearing, surely destruction of that food could not be justified. Nonetheless, the Court observed:

"If a hearing were to be always necessary, even under the circumstances of this case, the question at once arises as to what is to be done with the food in the meantime. Is it to remain with the cold storage company, and if so under what security that it will not be removed? To be sure that it will not be removed during the time necessary for the hearing, which might frequently be indefinitely prolonged, some guard would probably have to be placed over the subject-matter of the investigation, which would involve expense, and might not even then prove effectual." Id., at 320.

Similar inabilities of the party claiming a right to a prior hearing, to make the moving party in the suit whole, have appeared where incompetence and malfeasance in the administration of a bank could precipitate a financial collapse in the community, which would go uncompensated, see Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U.S., at 250, or where, in the absence of a jeopardy assessment by the Tax Commissioner, a taxpayer might waste or conceal his assets, see Phillips v. Commissioner, supra. In all such cases it is also significant that the party advancing the claim to a summary procedure stands ready to make whole the party who has been deprived of his property, if the initial taking proves to be wrongful, either by the credit of the public fisc or by posting a bond.

Of course, this principle cannot be applied with success to explain the Court's decisions in cases holding that a pretermination hearing is required; it is not true that the party entitled to the hearing stands ready to compensate the adversary for what may be the wrongful possession of the property in question during the pendency of the litigation. This is vividly illustrated in Goldberg v. Kelly where the Court observed that "the benefits paid to ineligible recipients pending decision at the hearing probably cannot be recouped, since these recipients are likely to be judgment proof." 397 U.S., at 266. However, other considerations have proved decisive, such as: the risk that the initial deprivation may be wrongful; the impact on the claimant to a hearing of not having the property while he waits for a full hearing; the interest of the party opposing the prior hearing and asserting the need for immediate possession in not alerting the current possessor to the lawsuit; and the risk of leaving the property in possession of the current possessor between the time notice is supplied and the time of the preliminary hearing.

In Goldberg and Sniadach, the Court observed that there was a substantial chance that the claimant to the property, be it the State or garnishor, would lose in the ultimate resolution of the controversy. In Goldberg, the Court took note of the "welfare bureaucracy's difficulties in reaching correct decisions on eligibility." 397 U.S., at 264 n. 12. Since the time of the decision in Goldberg, at least one study has shown that decisions to terminate benefits have been reversed with a fair degree of frequency. Concern was also expressed with the use of garnishment in a vast number of cases where the debt was fraudulent. Sniadach, 395 U.S., at 341. In Fuentes, although no such empirical evidence was available, the risk of wrongful deprivations was unnecessarily increased by allowing a clerk, rather than a judge, to pass on the creditor's claim for summary replevin. In Bell, the Court held unconstitutional a state statute requiring summary suspension of a driver's license of any uninsured motorist who was unable after an accident to post security for the amount of the damages claimed against him. The only hearing held by the State on the issue of suspension excluded any consideration of fault, the standard on which the validity would ultimately turn. Without some kind of probable-cause determination of fault, it was obvious that many suspensions would prove to be unwarranted.

As for the impact on the current property possessor of not having an early pretermination hearing, the Court has held that without possession of the property a person may be unable to exist at even a minimum standard of decency. In Goldberg, where the person would have lost the last source of support available, aside from charity, the Court observed that "termination of aid pending resolution of a controversy over eligibility may deprive an eligible recipient of the very means by which to live while he waits. Since he lacks independent resources, his situation becomes immediately desperate." 397 U.S., at 264. In fact, the magnitude of deprivation may be such as to prevent the welfare recipient from pursuing his right to a later full hearing. Ibid. In Sniadach, the seizure of an individual's wages could "as a practical matter drive a wage-earning family to the wall." 395 U.S., at 341-342 (footnote omitted). In Bell, the petitioner was a clergyman whose ministry required him to travel by car to cover three rural Georgia communities, and he was "severely handicapped in the performance of his ministerial duties by a suspension of his licenses." 402 U.S., at 537. The impact of deprivation increases, of course, the longer the time period between the initial deprivation and the opportunity to have a full hearing. In Goldberg, the Court noted that although pertinent New York regulations provided that a "fair hearing" be held within 10 working days of the request, with decision within 12 working days thereafter, "[i]t was conceded in oral argument that these time limits are not in fact observed." 397 U.S., at 260 n. 5. In Sniadach and Fuentes, there was no indication of the speed with which a court ruling on garnishment and possession would be rendered, and of course the ultimate issues on the merits in such cases must wait for a still later determination. In Bell, the issue of liability might not be determined until full trial proceedings in court.

The last factor to be weighed in the balance is the danger to the party claiming possession occasioned by alerting the current possessor to the lawsuit, and then leaving the property in his hands pending the holding of the preliminary hearing. In Goldberg and Sniadach, the property right seized was a flow of income, in one case from the government, and in the other from the private employer, pending the preliminary hearing. The government ran no special risk by supplying notice in advance of the cutoff, since the government was in possession of the flow of income until it was turned over piecemeal to the welfare recipient. Further, though the government could assert in the welfare case that it would incur an uncompensated loss, that risk would only be incurred from the time the last check is delivered until the pretermination hearing is held and the administrative agency certainly has the power to offer a speedy hearing before that time is reached. See Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, at 266. In Sniadach, while it was true that the inability to garnish wages could leave the creditor uncompensated, if the debtor proved judgment proof, this was a risk the creditor assumed at the outset by being unsecured. Further, notice to the debtor of the pendency of the lawsuit is not likely to increase the risk that the debtor will prove to be judgment proof, since the debtor is not likely to leave his job due to the pendency of the suit. Likewise, the risk to the creditor of the debtor's drawing on his wages between the time of notice and the availability of a court hearing on the claim in no way interferes with the creditor's claim to the future flow of earnings after the hearing has been held. The garnishor, therefore, asserts not only the right to take the debtor's wages, but to take them before the controversy has been resolved. In Bell, the risk to the State of supplying notice to the licensee and of leaving the person in possession of the license until the hearing, was not at issue, since the state statute provided for notice and a presuspension hearing. There were few costs attached to expanding the scope of that hearing to include a probable-cause determination of fault.

With the above principles in hand, is the tenured civil-service employee entitled to a pretermination hearing, such as that provided by the Lloyd-La Follette Act?

There would be a problem of uncompensated loss to the Government, if the employee were to draw wages without working for the period between notice of a discharge and a preliminary hearing. Yet, if the charge against the employee did not indicate that the employee should be excluded from the workplace pending this hearing, some work could be exacted by the Government in exchange for its payment of salary. One must also consider another type of cost to the Government if preseparation hearings were provided — the necessity of keeping a person on the scene who might injure the public interest through poor service or might create an uproar at the workplace. However, suspension with pay would obviate this problem.

On the employee's side of the ledger, there is the danger of mistaken termination. Discharge decisions, made ex parte, may be reversed after full hearing. One study reveals that in fiscal year 1970, in agencies where full pretermination hearings were routine, employees contesting removal were successful almost 20% of the time. Merrill, Procedures for Adverse Actions Against Federal Employees, 59 Va. L. Rev. 196, 204 n. 35 (1973).

The impact on the employee of being without a job pending a full hearing is likely to be considerable because "[m]ore than 75 percent of actions contested within employing agencies require longer to decide than the 60 days prescribed by [Civil Service] Commission regulations. Over 50 percent take more than three months, and five percent are in process for longer than a year." Id., at 206. Of course, the discharged civil servant, deprived of his source of income, can seek employment in the private sector and so cut or minimize his losses, opportunities largely unavailable to the welfare recipient in Goldberg or the debtor in Sniadach. Nonetheless, the employee may not be able to get a satisfactory position in the private sector, particularly a tenured one, and his marketability may be under a cloud due to the circumstances of his dismissal. See Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U.S. 70, 83-84 (1973). Cf. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S., at 574 n. 13. It should be stressed that if such employment is unavailable the Government may truly be pursuing a partially counter-productive policy by forcing the employee onto the welfare rolls.

Finally, by providing a pretermination hearing, the Government runs no risk through providing notice, since the employee cannot run away with his job, and can surely minimize its risk of uncompensated loss by eliminating the provision for personal appearances and setting early dates for filing written objections. Altogether different considerations as to notice might be applicable, if the employee would be likely to do damage to the Government if provided with such notice. See 5 C.F.R. § 752.202 (c)(2) (1972), providing that an agency may dispense with the 30-day notice requirement "[w]hen there is reasonable cause to believe an employee is guilty of a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment can be imposed."

Perhaps partly on the basis of some of these constitutional considerations, Congress has provided for pretermination hearings. Certainly the debate on the Lloyd-La Follette Act indicates that constitutional considerations were present in the minds of Congressmen speaking in favor of the legislation. In any event, I conclude that the statute and regulations, to the extent they require 30 days' advance notice and a right to make a written presentation, satisfy minimum constitutional requirements.

IV

Appellee in this case not only asserts that he is entitled to a hearing at some time before his property interest is finally terminated, and to a pretermination hearing of some kind before his wages are provisionally cut off, which are currently provided to him, but also argues that he must be furnished certain procedures at this preliminary hearing not provided by Congress: an impartial hearing examiner, an opportunity to present witnesses, and the right to engage in cross-examination. In other words, his claim is not only to a pretermination hearing, but one in which full trial-type procedures are available.

A

The facts in this case show that the Regional Director, Verduin, who charged appellee Kennedy with making slanderous statements about him as to an alleged bribe offer, also ruled in the preliminary hearing that Kennedy should be terminated.

The "Notification of Proposed Adverse Action," signed by Verduin, charged that appellee had "made statements knowingly against officials of this agency which could harm or destroy their authority, official standing or reputation" and that appellee had engaged "in a course of conduct intended to produce public notoriety and conclusions on the part of the public, without any proof whatsoever and in reckless disregard of the actual facts known to you [appellee], or reasonably discoverable by you [appellee], that officials of this agency had committed or attempted to commit acts of misfeasance, nonfeasance and malfeasance." Facts were marshaled to support the charges that appellee had spoken at a union meeting "to the effect that [Verduin and his assistant] had attempted to bribe Mr. James White Eagle Stewart by offering him a $100,000 grant of OEO funds if he would sign a statement against you [appellee] and another employee," and that appellee had spoken of the bribe to a newspaper reporter and to a radio station.

After appellee had received this notice, he made no response to the merits of the charges, but instead wrote to Verduin requesting that he was entitled to certain procedural rights at the hearing, one of which was to have "a genuinely impartial hearing officer," thus furnishing Verduin with the opportunity to recuse himself and provide an alternative hearing examiner. This was not done.

In considering appellee's claim to have an impartial hearing examiner, we might start with a first principle: "[N]o man shall be a judge in his own cause." Bonham's Case, 8 Co. 114a, 118a, 77 Eng. Rep. 646, 652 (1610). Verduin's reputation was certainly at stake in the charges brought against Kennedy. Indeed, the heart of the charge was that Kennedy had spoken of Verduin in reckless disregard of the truth. That Verduin almost seemed to be stating a libel complaint against Kennedy under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), dramatizes the personal conflict which precipitated the proposed termination.

Our decisions have stressed, in situations analogous to the one faced here, that the right to an impartial decision-maker is required by due process. The Court has held that those with a substantial pecuniary interest in legal proceedings should not adjudicate these disputes. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927); Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972). The Court has observed that disqualification because of interest has been extended with equal force to administrative adjudications. Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 579 (1973).

In the context of contempt before a judge, where a judge trying a defendant is the object of "efforts to denounce, insult, and slander the court," and "marked personal feelings were present on both sides," the Court has held that criminal contempt proceedings should be held before a judge other than the one reviled by the contemnor. Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U.S. 455, 462, 464 (1971). See In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257 (1948); cf. In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133 (1955).

We have also stressed the need for impartiality in administrative proceedings, stating in Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, that an "impartial decision maker is essential," 397 U.S., at 271. (Citations omitted.) To the same effect was Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 485-486 (1972), involving revocation of parole. In both Goldberg and Morrissey, this requirement was held to apply to pretermination hearings.

It may be true that any hearing without an impartial hearing officer will reflect the bias of the adjudicator. The interest of the Government in not so providing would appear slim. Given the pretermination hearing, it would seem in the Government's interest to avoid lengthy appeals occasioned by biased initial judgments, and it would be reasonable to expect more correct decisions at the initial stage at little cost if the hearing officer is impartial.

My view is a narrower one, however. Fairness and accuracy are not always threatened simply because the hearing examiner is the supervisor of an employee, or, as in this case, the Regional Director over many employees, including appellee. But here the hearing official was the object of slander that was the basis for the employee's proposed discharge. See Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, supra. In ruling that the employee was to be terminated, the hearing examiner's own reputation, as well as the efficiency of the service, was at stake; and although Mr. Verduin may have succeeded, in fact, in disassociating his own personal feelings from his decision as to the interests of OEO, the risk and the appearance that this was not the case were too great to tolerate. In such situations the official normally charged with the discharge decision need only recuse and transfer the file to a person qualified to make the initial decision. We need not hold that the Lloyd-La Follette Act is unconstitutional for its lack of provision for an impartial hearing examiner. Congress is silent on the matter. We would rather assume, because of the constitutional problems in not so providing, that, if faced with the question (at least on the facts of this case) Congress would have so provided. Volkswagenwerk v. FMC, 390 U.S. 261, 272 (1968). "Where administrative action has raised serious constitutional problems, the Court has assumed that Congress or the President intended to afford those affected by the action the traditional safeguards of due process." Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S., at 507 (citations omitted).

B

Appellee also claims a right to a full trial-type hearing at the pretermination stage, particularly asserting that he is denied due process, if not given the opportunity to present and cross-examine witnesses.

While fully realizing the value of a full trial-type hearing as a method for ultimate resolution of the facts, see id., at 496-497, the pretermination hearing is not held for the purpose of making such an ultimate determination. This is provided for through the appeal procedure where the employee is afforded the procedural rights he now seeks at an earlier stage of the proceedings. The function of the pretermination hearing is, and no more is required by due process, to make a probable-cause determination as to whether the charges brought against the employee are or are not true. Where the Court has held that pretermination hearings are required, in past decisions, it has spoken sparingly of the procedures to be required. Sniadach was silent on the matter, and Fuentes merely required something more than an ex parte proceeding before a court clerk. In Bell, the Court held that the hearing must involve a probable-cause determination as to the fault of the licensee, and "need not take the form of a full adjudication of the question of liability," realizing that "[a] procedural rule that may satisfy due process in one context may not necessarily satisfy due process in every case." 402 U.S., at 540. Thus, "procedural due process [was to] be satisfied by an inquiry limited to the determination whether there is a reasonable possibility of judgments in the amounts claimed being rendered against the licensee." Ibid. We think the clear implication of Bell to be that "full adjudication," including presentation of witnesses and cross-examination, need not be provided in every case where a pretermination hearing of some kind is required by due process or provided by the statute.

In Goldberg v. Kelly, the Court struck a different note on procedures. Although stating that the only function of the pretermination hearing was "to produce an initial determination of the validity of the welfare department's grounds for discontinuance of payments," and seemingly adopting a probable-cause standard, the Court required cross-examination of witnesses relied upon by the department. The Court was careful to observe, however, that these procedural rules were "tailored to the capacities and circumstances of those who are to be heard." 397 U.S., at 267, 268-269. The decision to cut off AFDC welfare payments leaves the recipient literally without any means to survive or support a family. While this level of deprivation may not be insisted upon as a necessary condition for requiring some kind of pretermination hearing, it may well be decisive in requiring the Government to provide specific procedures at the pretermination stage. The greater the level of deprivation which may flow from a decision, the less one may tolerate the risk of a mistaken decision, cf. Morrissey v. Brewer, supra, and thus the Court in Goldberg, while maintaining that the pretermination hearing was in the nature of a probable-cause determination, was less willing to allow a margin of error as to probable cause. Rules of procedure are often shaped by the risk of making an erroneous determination. See In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 368 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). Indeed, all that was specifically not required in Goldberg was a complete record and a comprehensive opinion. 397 U.S., at 267.

In this case, the employee is not totally without prospect for some form of support during the period between the pretermination and final hearing on appeal, though it may not be equivalent in earnings or tenure to his prior competitive service position. Although the employee may not be entitled to unemployment compensation, see Christian v. New York Dept. of Labor, 414 U.S. 614 (1974), since he has been terminated for cause he may get some form of employment in the private sector, and, if necessary, may draw on the welfare system in the interim. Given this basic floor of need, which the system provides, we should not hold that procedural due process is so inflexible as to require the Court to hold that the procedural protections, of a written statement and oral presentation to an impartial hearing examiner provided by regulation, are insufficient. The Court stated in Richardson v. Wright, 405 U.S. 208 (1972), that new regulations of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare required that Social Security disability payments were not to be suspended in a pretermination hearing without "notice of a proposed suspension and the reasons therefor, plus an opportunity to submit rebuttal evidence," but could be without an oral presentation, since "[i]n the context of a comprehensive complex administrative program, the administrative process must have a reasonable opportunity to evolve procedures to meet needs as they arise." Cf. Torres v. New York State Department of Labor, 333 F. Supp. 341 (SDNY 1971), aff'd, 405 U.S. 949 (1972). Necessarily, to some extent, the Court must share with Congress, in an area where one is called upon to judge the efficacy of particular procedures, a role in defining constitutional requirements, and Congress explicitly left it to the discretion of the agency as to whether such procedures were required. I would not upset that judgment in this case.

In accord with these views, I would affirm the judgment of the three-judge court, ordering reinstatement and backpay, due to the failure to provide an impartial hearing officer at the pretermination hearing. I would reverse that part of the court's order enjoining the application of the statute on First Amendment vagueness and overbreadth grounds.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.

The federal bureaucracy controls a vast conglomerate of people who walk more and more submissively to the dictates of their superiors. Our federal employees have lost many important political rights. CSC v. Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, held that they could be barred from taking "an active part in political management or in political campaigns," a restriction that some of us thought to be unconstitutional, id., at 595 et seq. (DOUGLAS, J., dissenting). Today's decision deprives them of other important First Amendment rights.

Heretofore, as my Brother MARSHALL has shown, we have insisted that before a vital stake of the individual in society is destroyed by government he be given a hearing on the merits of the government's claim. Among these personal and vital stakes are welfare benefits, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254; the weekly wage of a worker, Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337; a person's driver's license, Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535; repossession of household goods, Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67; the position of a tenured professor in a state educational institution, Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564; revocation of parole, Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471.

There is more than employment and a job at issue in this case. The stake of the federal employee is not only in a livelihood, but in his right to speak guaranteed by the First Amendment. He is charged with having stated that his superior and the superior's assistant had attempted to bribe a representative of a community action organization with whom the agency (OEO) had dealings. He is charged with having stated that those men offered a bribe of $100,000 in OEO funds to that organization if its representative would sign a statement against appellee and another OEO employee. This statement in my view was on a subject in the public domain. We all know merely by living in Washington, D.C., the storms that have swept through that agency and its branches. It has dealt with inflammatory problems in the solution of which inflammatory utterances are often made. I realize that it is the tradition of the Court to "balance" the right of free speech against other governmental interests and to sustain the First Amendment right only when the Court deems that in a given situation its importance outweighs competing interests. That was the approach in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, where the Court deemed what a teacher said against the school board was more important than the board's sensibilities. The Court, however, reserved decision where the comments of an employee involved "either discipline by immediate superiors or harmony among coworkers," id., at 570. That is one reason why Mr. Justice Black and I concurred in the result citing, inter alia, our opinion in Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374. Mr. Justice Black said that the "balancing" or "weighing" doctrine "plainly encourages and actually invites judges to choose for themselves between conflicting values, even where, as in the First Amendment, the Founders made a choice of values, one of which is a free press. Though the Constitution requires that judges swear to obey and enforce it, it is not altogether strange that all judges are not always dead set against constitutional interpretations that expand their powers, and that when power is once claimed by some, others are loath to give it up," id., at 399-400.

The fact that appellee in the present case inveighed against his superior is irrelevant. The matter on which he spoke was in the public domain. His speaking may well have aroused such animosity in his superior as to disqualify him from being in charge of disciplinary proceedings; and conceivably it could cause disharmony among workers. And these consequences are quite antagonistic to the image which agencies have built. Their dominant characteristic is the application of Peter's Inversion. See L. Peter R. Hull, The Peter Principle 24-26 (Bantam ed. 1970). In a few words Peter's Inversion marks the incompetent cadre's interest in an employee's input, not his output.

His input reflects his attitude toward the cadre, and toward his work. A pleasant manner, promotion of staff harmony, servility to the cadre, and promptness, civility, and submissiveness are what count. The result is a great leveling of employees. They hear the beat of only one drum and march to it. These days employers have psychological tests by which they can separate the ingenious, offbeat character who may make trouble from the more subservient type. It is, of course, none of a court's problem what the employment policies may be. But once an employee speaks out on a public issue and is punished for it, we have a justiciable issue. Appellee is in my view being penalized by the Federal Government for exercising his right to speak out. The excuse or pretense is an Act of Congress and an agency's regulations promulgated under it in the teeth of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . ." Losing one's job with the Federal Government because of one's discussion of an issue in the public domain is certainly an abridgment of speech.

MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN concur, dissenting.

I would affirm the judgment of the District Court, both in its holding that a tenured Government employee must be afforded an evidentiary hearing prior to a dismissal for cause and in its decision that 5 U.S.C. § 7501 is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad as a regulation of employees' speech.

I

The first issue in this case is a relatively narrow one — whether a federal employee in the competitive service, entitled by statute to serve in his job without fear of dismissal except for cause, must be given an evidentiary hearing before he is discharged. We are hardly writing on a clean slate in this area. In just the last five years, the Court has held that such a hearing must be afforded before wages can be garnished, Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969); welfare benefits terminated, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254 (1970); a driver's license revoked, Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535 (1971); consumer goods repossessed, Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972); parole revoked, Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972); or a tenured college professor fired by a public educational institution, Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972).

A

In the Roth and Sindermann cases, MR. JUSTICE STEWART established the framework for analysis to determine in what circumstances the Due Process Clause demands a hearing. He observed that although due process is a flexible concept, it is not unlimited in application. "The requirements of procedural due process apply only to the deprivation of interests encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of liberty and property." Roth, supra, at 569. Thus the first issue to be decided is whether appellee had an interest in his tenured Government employment such that his discharge amounts to a deprivation of liberty or property.

The decisions of this Court have given constitutional recognition to the fact that in our complex modern society, wealth and property take many forms. We have said that property interests requiring constitutional protection "extend well beyond actual ownership of real estate, chattels, or money." Roth, supra, at 572. They extend as well to "safeguard . . . the security of interests that a person has already acquired in specific benefits." Id., at 576. The test for whether a protected interest has been infringed reflects this broad concept of "property":

"To have a property interest in a benefit, a person . . . must . . . have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it. It is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined." Id., at 577.

Accordingly, in Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, the Court found that public assistance recipients had such a claim of entitlement to welfare benefits grounded in the statute defining eligibility. In Bell v. Burson, supra, the Court held that a driver's license, once issued, becomes an important property interest because its "continued possession may become essential in the pursuit of a livelihood." 402 U.S., at 539. More to the point, in Roth the Court surveyed the constitutional restraints applicable in the area of public employment:

"[T]he Court has held that a public college professor dismissed from an office held under tenure provisions, Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551, and college professors and staff members dismissed during the terms of their contracts, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, have interests in continued employment that are safeguarded by due process." 408 U.S., at 576-577.

See also Connell v. Higginbotham, 403 U.S. 207 (1971). In Perry v. Sindermann, supra, we found a property interest in the implied tenure policy of a state university.

We have already determined that a legitimate claim of entitlement to continued employment absent "sufficient cause" is a property interest requiring the protections of procedural due process. Thus, there can be little doubt that appellee's tenured Government employment, from which he could not legally be dismissed except for cause, must also be a "property" interest for the purposes of the Fifth Amendment. The job security appellee enjoyed is clearly one of "those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives." Roth, supra, at 577. And appellee's interest in continued public employment encompassed more than just the periodic accrual of wages. His dismissal also affects his valuable statutory entitlements to retirement credits and benefits, 5 U.S.C. § 8301, 8311-8322, 8331-8348; periodic salary increases, 5 U.S.C. § 5335; and life and health insurance, 5 U.S.C. § 8701-8716, 8901-8913 (1970 ed. and Supp II).

We are in agreement that appellee does have a claim of entitlement to his Government job, absent proof of specified misconduct. MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST explains, however, that this claim is founded only in statute, and that the statute which guarantees tenure also provides that a hearing is not required before discharge. He concludes that "the property interest which appellee had in his employment was itself conditioned by the procedural limitations which had accompanied the grant of that interest," ante, at 155, wryly observing that "a litigant in the position of appellee must take the bitter with the sweet," ante, at 154.

Courts once considered procedural due process protections inapplicable to welfare on much the same theory — that "in accepting charity, the appellant has consented to the provisions of the law under which charity is bestowed." Obviously, this Court rejected that reasoning in Goldberg, supra, where we held that conditions under which public assistance was afforded, which did not include a pretermination hearing, were violative of due process. In Sindermann, supra, the Court held that the Constitution required a hearing before dismissal even where the implicit grant of tenure did not encompass the right to such a hearing. In Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972), the Court held that although the limited grant of liberty afforded by parole was conditioned by statute on the possibility of revocation without a prior evidentiary hearing, such a hearing was constitutionally required. In Bell v. Burson, supra, the state statute under which drivers' licenses were issued provided for the suspension of an uninsured motorist's license without a prior hearing. The Court nonetheless held that a hearing was required before the suspension could be effected. In none of these cases did the Court consider a statutory procedure to be an inherent limitation on the statutorily created liberty or property interest. Rather, once such an interest was found, the Court determined whether greater procedural protections were required by the Due Process Clause than were accorded by the statute.

Applying that analysis here requires us to find that although appellee's property interest arose from statute, the deprivation of his claim of entitlement to continued employment would have to meet minimum standards of procedural due process regardless of the discharge procedures provided by the statute. Accordingly, a majority of the Court rejects MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST'S argument that because appellee's entitlement arose from statute, it could be conditioned on a statutory limitation of procedural due process protections, an approach which would render such protection inapplicable to the deprivation of any statutory benefit — any "privilege" extended by Government — where a statute prescribed a termination procedure, no matter how arbitrary or unfair. It would amount to nothing less than a return, albeit in somewhat different verbal garb, to the thoroughly discredited distinction between rights and privileges which once seemed to govern the applicability of procedural due process.

B

We have repeatedly observed that due process requires that a hearing be held "at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner," Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552 (1965), but it remains for us to give content to that general principle in this case by balancing the Government's asserted interests against those of the discharged employee. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S., at 263; see Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 895 (1961).

The interests of a public employee in a secure Government job are as weighty as other interests which we have found to require at least the rudimentary protection of an evidentiary hearing as a precondition to termination.

"This Court has often had occasion to note that the denial of public employment is a serious blow to any citizen. . . . Employment is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, benefits that governments offer in modern-day life." Roth, 408 U.S., at 589 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting).

See Perry v. Sindermann, supra; Connell v. Higginbotham, 403 U.S. 207 (1971); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967); Cramp v. Board of Public Instruction, 368 U.S. 278, 288 (1961); Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 185 (1951) (Jackson, J., concurring); United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 316-317 (1946). The Court has recognized the vital importance of employment in related contexts. In Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., the Court expressed its particular concern that "garnishment [of wages] often meant the loss of a job," 395 U.S., at 340, and in Bell v. Burson, supra, we relied heavily on the fact that a driver's license may be "essential in the pursuit of a livelihood," 402 U.S., at 539. In Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 508 (1959), the Court construed federal security clearance regulations to avoid the constitutional issues that would be presented if the petitioner were deprived "of his job in a proceeding in which he was not afforded the safeguards of [procedural due process]." See id., at 506-507; Willner v. Committee on Character, 373 U.S. 96, 103-104 (1963).

An exhaustive study by the United States Administrative Conference of the problem of agency dismissals led the author of the Conference's report to observe:

"One cannot escape the conclusion, however, that the government employee who is removed from his job loses something of tremendous value that in a market of declining demand for skills may not be replaceable."

And the report also observes:

"[O]ne must acknowledge what seems to be an accepted, if regrettable, fact of life: Removal from government employment for cause carries a stigma that is probably impossible to outlive. Agency personnel officers are generally prepared to concede . . . that it is difficult for the fired government worker to find employment in the private sector."

Dismissal from public employment for cause may also, therefore, implicate liberty interests in imposing on the discharged employee a stigma of incompetence or wrong-doing that forecloses "his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities." Roth, supra, at 573; see Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 437 (1971).

Given the importance of the interest at stake, the discharged employee should be afforded an opportunity to test the strength of the evidence of his misconduct by confronting and cross-examining adverse witnesses and by presenting witnesses in his own behalf, whenever there are substantial disputes in testimonial evidence. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S., at 487. A dismissal for cause often involves disputed questions of fact raised by accusations of misconduct. Mistakes of identity, distortions caused by the failure of information sources, faulty perceptions or cloudy memories, as well as fabrications born of personal antagonisms are among the factors which may undermine the accuracy of the factual determinations upon which dismissals are based. The possibility of error is not insignificant. Almost a fourth of all appeals from adverse agency actions result in reversal.

In our system of justice, the right of confrontation provides the crucible for testing the truth of accusations such as those leveled by appellee's superior and strenuously denied by appellee. "In almost every setting where important decisions turn on questions of fact, due process requires an opportunity to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses." Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S., at 269 (citations omitted). The Goldberg Court's citation to a well-known passage from Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474 (1959), is equally applicable to a dismissal from public employment for cause as to a termination of welfare benefits.

"'Certain principles have remained immutable in our jurisprudence. One of these is that where government action seriously injures an individual, and the reasonableness of the action depends on fact findings, the evidence used to prove the Government's case must be disclosed to the individual so that he has an opportunity to show that it is untrue. While this is important in the case of documentary evidence, it is even more important where the evidence consists of the testimony of individuals whose memory might be faulty or who, in fact, might be perjurers or persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice or jealousy. We have formalized these protections in the requirements of confrontation and cross-examination.'" Id., at 496-497, quoted in Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, at 270.

See also Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 295-298 (1973); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965).

This case and Goldberg involve the termination of income, whether in salary or public assistance payments, upon which the recipient may depend for basic sustenance. A person should not be deprived of his livelihood "in a proceeding in which he was not afforded the safe-guards of confrontation and cross-examination." Greene, supra, at 508; see Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411, 423-429 (1969); Willner v. Committee on Character, 373 U.S., at 103. The stakes are just too high and the possibility of misjudgment too great to allow dismissal without giving the tenured public employee an opportunity to contest its basis and produce evidence in rebuttal. See Goldberg, supra, at 266.

It also seems clear that for the hearing to be meaningful, the hearing officer must be independent and unbiased and his decision be entitled to some weight. We addressed the importance of this element of due process in Goldberg, supra, where we found the requirements of due process were not met by the review of a welfare termination decision by the caseworker who was, in effect, also the complainant. 397 U.S., at 271. In Morrissey v. Brewer, supra, we held that an independent decisionmaker must determine whether reasonable grounds exist for parole revocation because an "officer directly involved in making recommendations cannot always have complete objectivity in evaluating them." 408 U.S., at 486. The need for an independent decisionmaker is particularly crucial in the public employment context, where the reason for the challenged dismissal may well be related to some personal antagonism between the employee and his superior, as appears to be the case here. See Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 578-579, Appendix n. 2 (1968).

C

A discharged federal worker in the competitive service is, in fact, guaranteed a full evidentiary hearing before an impartial decisionmaker whose report is entitled to considerable weight. But the timing of the hearing is discretionary with the employing agency, see 5 C.F.R. § 771.208 (a) (1972), and in many agencies, such as the OEO, the hearing comes long after the employee has been removed from the Government service and payroll. In a sense, then, the real issue is not whether appellee must be accorded an evidentiary hearing, but only whether that hearing should have been afforded before his discharge became effective. Although the nature of the hearing required by due process is determined by a balancing process, that hearing must be held at a meaningful time. Accordingly, the Court has embraced a general presumption that one who is constitutionally entitled to a hearing should be heard before the deprivation of his liberty or property takes place. Thus, in Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971), the Court observed that the fact that "the hearing . . . is not fixed in form does not affect its root requirement that an individual be given an opportunity for a hearing before he is deprived of any significant property interest, except for extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event." Id., at 378-379. (Emphasis in original.) In Bell v. Burson, supra, we held that "except in emergency situations . . . due process requires that when a State seeks to terminate an [important property] interest . . . it must afford 'notice and opportunity for hearing . . .' before the termination becomes effective." 402 U.S., at 542 (emphasis in original) (footnote omitted). In Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, the Court found that an evidentiary hearing held after the termination of welfare benefits was inadequate to satisfy constitutional requirements.

Even if we accept appellants' assertion that a subsequent hearing affords the discharged employee an opportunity to clear his name, the worker still has a significant interest in retaining his job pending a full hearing. Almost a fourth of all appeals from agency dismissals result in a finding that the termination was illegal. And, the delay from discharge to ultimate vindication at a hearing on appeal is far from insubstantial. More than 75% of adverse personnel actions take more than two months to process; over half take more than three months and a not insignificant number take more than a year. The longer the period between the discharge and the hearing, the more devastating will be the impact of the loss of employment.

During the period of delay, the employee is off the Government payroll. His ability to secure other employment to tide himself over may be significantly hindered by the outstanding charges against him. Even aside from the stigma that attends a dismissal for cause, few employers will be willing to hire and train a new employee knowing that he will return to a former Government position as soon as an appeal is successful. And in many States, including Illinois, where appellee resides, a worker discharged for cause is not even eligible for unemployment compensation.

Many workers, particularly those at the bottom of the pay scale, will suffer severe and painful economic dislocations from even a temporary loss of wages. Few public employees earn more than enough to pay their expenses from month to month. See Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 97 (1974) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). Like many of us, they may be required to meet substantial fixed costs on a regular basis and lack substantial savings to meet those expenses while not receiving a salary. The loss of income for even a few weeks may well impair their ability to provide the essentials of life — to buy food, meet mortgage or rent payments, or procure medical services. Ricucci v. United States, 192 Ct. Cl. 1, 9-11, 425 F.2d 1252, 1256-1257 (1970) (Skelton, J., concurring). The plight of a discharged employee may not be far different from that of the welfare recipient in Goldberg who, "pending resolution of a controversy . . . may [be] deprive[d] . . . of the very means by which to live while he waits." 397 U.S., at 264. Appellee, although earning an annual salary of $16,000 before his dismissal, far above the mean salary for federal employees, was nonetheless driven to the brink of financial ruin while he waited. He had to borrow money to support his family, his debts went unpaid, his family lost the protection of his health insurance and, finally, he was forced to apply for public assistance. App. 128 et seq. In this context justice delayed may well be justice denied.

To argue that a dismissal from tenured Government employment is not a serious enough deprivation to require a prior hearing because the discharged employee may draw on the welfare system in the interim, is to exhibit a gross insensitivity to the plight of these employees. First, it assumes that the discharged employee will be eligible for welfare. Often welfare applicants must be all but stripped of their worldly goods before being admitted to the welfare roles, hence it is likely that the employee will suffer considerable hardship before becoming eligible. He may be required not only to exhaust his savings but also to convert many of his assets into cash for support before being able to fall back on public assistance. He may have to give up his home or cherished personal possessions in order to become eligible. The argument also assumes all but instant eligibility which is, sadly, far from likely even when all the employee's other sources of support have been depleted. Moreover, rightly or wrongly, many people consider welfare degrading and would decline public assistance even when eligible. Finally, the level of subsistence provided by welfare is minimal, certainly less than one is apt to expect from steady employment. The substitution of a meager welfare grant for a regular paycheck may bring with it painful and irremediable personal as well as financial dislocations. A child's education may be interrupted, a family's home lost, a person's relationship with his friends and even his family may be irrevocably affected. The costs of being forced, even temporarily, onto the welfare rolls because of a wrongful discharge from tenured Government employment cannot be so easily discounted.

Nor does the availability of backpay upon an ultimate finding that the dismissal was improper alleviate the compelling nature of the employee's plight. Cf. Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S., at 97 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). In Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., supra, the Court recognized that the employee had an interest in the enjoyment of his wages as they accrued and noted that even a temporary loss of salary could put a wage earner below the poverty level or "drive a wage-earning family to the wall." 395 U.S., at 341-342. Thus, we held that a wage earner is entitled to a hearing prior to the garnishment of his wages even though he would ultimately get his frozen earnings back when and if he prevailed in a suit on the merits. See also, id., at 343 (Harlan, J., concurring). And, in Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972), the Court held that due process required a hearing before a seizure of property by writ of replevin, observing:

"If the right to notice and a hearing is to serve its full purpose, then, it is clear that it must be granted at a time when the deprivation can still be prevented. At a later hearing, an individual's possessions can be returned to him if they were unfairly or mistakenly taken in the first place. Damages may even be awarded to him for wrongful deprivation. But no later hearing and no damage award can undo the fact that the arbitrary taking that was subject to the right of procedural due process had already occurred. 'This Court has not . . . embraced the general proposition that a wrong may be done if it can be undone.'" Id., at 81-82.

The Fuentes Court, applying these considerations, albeit in dicta, observed that, "[i]n cases involving deprivations of other interests, such as government employment, the Court similarly has required an unusually important governmental need to outweigh the right to a prior hearing." Id., at 91 n. 23.

The Court has recognized a number of instances where a vital governmental interest may outweigh the right to a prior hearing, including the need to seize property to "collect the internal revenue of the United States, to meet the needs of a national war effort, to protect against the economic disaster of a bank failure, and to protect the public from misbranded drugs and contaminated foods." Id., at 92 (footnotes omitted). Such a vital interest is clearly lacking here.

The Government's asserted interests in not affording a predismissal hearing are twofold. First, appellants argue that the delay in holding the hearing makes the functioning of the agency more efficient. We rejected a similar rationale in Goldberg, 397 U.S., at 266, and observed in Fuentes, supra:

"A prior hearing always imposes some costs in time, effort, and expense, and it is often more efficient to dispense with the opportunity for such a hearing. But these rather ordinary costs cannot outweigh the constitutional right. Procedural due process is not intended to promote efficiency or accommodate all possible interests: it is intended to protect the particular interests of the person whose possessions [or property] are about to be taken.

"'. . . [T]he Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency. Indeed, one might fairly say of the Bill of Rights in general, and the Due Process Clause in particular, that they were designed to protect the fragile values of a vulnerable citizenry from the overbearing concern for efficiency and efficacy that may characterize praiseworthy government officials no less, and perhaps more, than mediocre ones.'" 407 U.S., at 90-91, n. 22 (citations omitted).

Moreover, the Government's interest in efficiency in this case is entirely unconvincing. The applicable statute does not prohibit prior hearings but rather makes them discretionary with the agency. Nine federal agencies, including the FCC, NLRB, HUD, HEW, the Department of Justice, and the Civil Service Commission itself, regularly accord evidentiary hearings prior to the dismissal of a tenured employee. The Administrative Conference of the United States, on the basis of its exhaustive study of federal agency proceedings for the dismissal of employees in the competitive service, strongly recommended that evidentiary hearings be held prior to discharge.

The Administrative Conference found that the evidence, although inconclusive, indicates that the agencies that provided pretermination hearings closed adverse action proceedings more quickly than those which did not hold an evidentiary hearing until after the dismissal had been effected. It also found that the delays in closing cases involving hearings are typically caused not by the length of the hearings — almost all are completed within a day — but rather by scheduling difficulties. And those agencies which take three months or more to hold post-termination hearings have little incentive to decide dismissal cases more promptly, since the employee has already been discharged and he bears most of the costs of delay. If the hearing were required before termination, agencies would have a far greater incentive to decide these cases expeditiously. Finally, providing an evidentiary hearing before the discharge might well obviate the practical and constitutional need for a full post-termination proceeding.

The Government also argues that if a supervisor were unable to effect an immediate removal of a troublesome employee from his agency, the discipline and efficiency of the whole office might be disrupted. Under the prevailing practice, an agency may not dismiss an employee until 30 days after he has received notice of the charges against him and has had an opportunity to reply. Thus, fellow workers and supervisors must now function with the threatened employee in their midst for at least a month, and there seems little reason why a hearing could not be held during that 30-day period. If the employee actually threatens to disrupt the operation of the office, he could be put on administrative leave or temporarily assigned to a less sensitive position pending his hearing, as currently provided for by regulation. 5 C.F.R. § 752.202 (d).

The only pretermination proceeding accorded appellee was a "right of reply," see 5 C.F.R. § 752.202 (b), but the "right of reply" falls far short of being the meaningful hearing which, in my view, is constitutionally required. As the author of the Administrative Conference Report observed:

"In most agencies . . . an employee's right to reply simply means that he may meet informally with a representative of the agency and advance oral representations that he hopes will sway the final decision. He has no right at this stage to present witnesses or to confront and cross-examine the agency's witnesses." (Footnotes omitted.)

The agency official before whom the employee appears need not be the decisionmaker; he need only be able to recommend a decision. Moreover, the hearing examiner or the person responsible for the decision to discharge the employee may well be the complainant or his direct subordinate. In the case before us, for example, the decision as to whether appellee should be discharged was made by the OEO Regional Director whom appellee had accused of misconduct. The Regional Director assembled the evidence against appellee, proposed the dismissal, then decided it should be effected; he acted as complaining witness, prosecutor, and judge. The meaningless bureaucratic paper shuffling afforded appellee before his discharge would surely not alone satisfy the stringent demands of due process when such an important interest is at stake.

The decisions of this Court compel the conclusion that a worker with a claim of entitlement to public employment absent specified cause has a property interest protected by the Due Process Clause and therefore the right to an evidentiary hearing before an impartial decisionmaker prior to dismissal. Accordingly, I would affirm the decision of the court below that appellee had been discharged in violation of his procedural due process rights.

II

The court below also held that the provision of the Lloyd-La Follette Act which authorizes dismissal of tenured Government employees for "such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service" is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.

There is no dispute that the phrase "'such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service' as a standard of employee job protection is without doubt intended to authorize dismissal for speech," ante, at 160. The majority finds this permissible because in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968), we observed that "the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with the regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general." But, the majority seems to have ignored the passage in Pickering that directly precedes the quoted material:

"[T]o suggest that teachers may constitutionally be 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, . . . proceeds on a premise that has been unequivocally rejected in numerous prior decisions of this Court. E. g., Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952); Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479 (1960); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967)." 391 U.S., at 568.

The importance of Government employees' being assured of their right to freely comment on the conduct of Government, to inform the public of abuses of power and of the misconduct of their superiors, must be self-evident in these times. In Pickering, this Court specifically upheld the right of a public employee to criticize the conduct of his superiors. Id., at 573-574. In fact, it appears that one of the primary purposes of the Lloyd-La Follette Act was to protect such criticism from official retribution. Senator La Follette gave the following example of an abuse sought to be cured by the bill:

"The cause for [the employee's] dismissal was that he gave publicity to the insanitary conditions existing in some part of the post-office building in Chicago where the clerks were required to perform their services. . . . [H]e furnished some facts to the press of Chicago, and the publication was made of the conditions. They were simply horrible . . . . The public health officers of Chicago, as soon as their attention was called to the conditions, condemned the situation as they found it; and yet this young man, one of the brightest fellows I have met, was removed from the service because, he had given publicity to these outrageous conditions." 48 Cong. Rec. 10731 (1912).

The "efficiency of the service" standard would appear to bring within its reach, as permissible grounds for dismissal, even truthful criticism of an agency that in any way tends to disrupt its operation. One can be sure, for example, that the young man's criticism in Senator La Follette's example disrupted the operation of the Chicago Post Office. It seems clear that the standard could be construed to punish such protected speech.

The majority purports to solve this potential overbreadth problem merely by announcing that the standard in the Act "excludes protected speech." Nonetheless, it leaves the statutory standard intact and offers no guidance other than general observation as to what conduct is or is not punishable. The Court's answer is no answer at all. To accept this response is functionally to eliminate overbreadth from the First Amendment lexicon. No statute can reach and punish constitutionally protected speech. The majority has not given the statute a limiting construction but merely repeated the obvious.

The majority misunderstands the overbreadth principle which concerns the potential deterrent effect on constitutionally protected speech of a statute that is overbroad or vague on its face. The focus of the doctrine is not on the individual actor before the court but on others who may forgo protected activity rather than run afoul of the statute's proscriptions. Hence, the Court has reversed convictions where the subject speech could have been punished under a more narrowly drawn statute because the statute as drawn purported to cover, and might deter others from engaging in, protected speech. The Court explained this vagueness-overbreadth relationship in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S., at 603-604:

"We emphasize once again that '[p]recision of regulation must be the touchstone in an area so closely touching our most precious freedoms,' N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 438; '[f]or standards of permissible statutory vagueness are strict in the area of free expression. . . . Because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive, government may regulate in the area only with narrow specificity.' Id., at 432-433. . . . When one must guess what conduct or utterances may lose him his position, one necessarily will 'steer far wider of the unlawful zone . . . .' Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 526. For '[t]he threat of sanctions may deter . . . almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions.' N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, supra, at 433. The danger of that chilling effect upon the exercise of vital First Amendment rights must be guarded against by sensitive tools which clearly inform [public employees] what is being proscribed."

By the uncertainty of its scope, the standard here creates the very danger of a chilling effect that concerned the Court in Keyishian. Employees are likely to limit their behavior to that which is unquestionably safe, for "the threat of dismissal from public employment is . . . a potent means of inhibiting speech." Pickering, 391 U.S., at 574. The dismissal standard hangs over their heads like a sword of Damocles, threatening them with dismissal for any speech that might impair the "efficiency of the service." That this Court will ultimately vindicate an employee if his speech is constitutionally protected is of little consequence — for the value of a sword of Damocles is that it hangs — not that it drops. For every employee who risks his job by testing the limits of the statute, many more will choose the cautious path and not speak at all.

The District Court found that "[b]ecause employees faced with the standard of 'such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service' can only guess as to what utterances may cost them their jobs, there can be little question that they will be deterred from exercising their First Amendment rights to the fullest extent." I agree with that characterization of the effect of the standard and would, therefore, uphold the conclusion of the District Court that the statute is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.

I respectfully dissent.