A city ordinance makes the city building inspector responsible for ensuring that all buildings in that city are kept up to building code standards and requires the inspector to refer for prosecution all known building code violations. Another ordinance provides that the city building inspector may be discharged for "good cause." The building inspector took a newspaper reporter through a number of run-down buildings in a slum neighborhood. After using various epithets and slurs to describe the occupants of these buildings, the building inspector stated to the reporter: "I do not even try to get these buildings up to code or to have their owners prosecuted for code violations because if these buildings are repaired, the people who live in them will just wreck them again." The reporter published these statements in a story in the local newspaper. The building inspector admitted he made the statements. On the basis of these statements, the city council discharged the building inspector. Is the action of the city council constitutional?
Yes, because the statements demonstrate that the building inspector has an attitude toward a certain class of persons that interferes with the proper performance of the obligations of his job.  Yes, because the building inspector is a government employee and a person holding such a position may not make public comments inconsistent with current governmental policy.  No, because the statements were lawful comments on a matter of public concern.  No, because the statements were published in a newspaper that is protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments