The panel reversed the district court’s judgment dismissing as unripe a lawsuit brought by two University of Washington professors challenging the investigatory policies of the Washington State Executive Ethics Board after the Board investigated the professors for misusing their state email addresses.

The Board investigated the professors after they forwarded to a faculty listserv several emails that allegedly contained political discussion and fundraising requests. In conducting the investigations, the Board reviewed several months’ worth of the professors’ emails. The Board ultimately did not discipline one professor, but it fined the other professor. In their lawsuit, the professors, on behalf of themselves and a putative class of listserv subscribers, alleged that the Board’s policies and practices chilled the exercise of their First Amendment rights.

The panel held that the district court erred in dismissing the professors’ lawsuit as unripe under Article III. The professors’ allegations that the Board’s policies will chill their speech are ripe under a pre-enforcement challenge framework because the professors remain affiliated with the University, they are the moderators of the listserv, the Board’s policies are alleged to remain in place, and the Board’s history of enforcement demonstrates a plausible and reasonable fear of prosecution. To the extent the professors also advanced a retaliation theory based on past events, their claim is ripe because the professors have already been injured under a regime that has penalized them for their speech to the listserv.

The panel further held that the district court erred by concluding that the professors’ claims were prudentially unripe. The professors’ claims are fit for judicial decision because the issues are primarily legal, involving the Board’s investigatory policies that have already been applied to the professors. Moreover, withholding review would impose a substantial hardship on the professors.

Because the professors’ claims are ripe, the panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of their complaint and remanded for further proceedings.

Judge Bennett dissented because in his view the professors’ complaint failed to plead an injury in fact that confers standing under either a pre- or post-enforcement framework. However, because facts on the ground material to the prudential ripeness analysis changed during the pendency of this appeal, he would remand to allow the professors to amend their complaint.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/08/22/24-919.pdf