{"id":131942,"date":"2012-09-24T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=131942"},"modified":"2012-12-26T16:03:37","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T21:03:37","slug":"where-free-speech-goes-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/24\/where-free-speech-goes-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Free Speech Goes To Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> Where Free Speech Goes To Die: The Workplace<\/a> by Mike Dolgow in Business Week.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> In America you can say pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want to say it. Unless, that is, you\u2019re at work. Simply put, there is no First Amendment right to \u201cfree speech\u201d in the workplace\u2014potentially perilous for many employees in a polarized political year with a tight presidential race.<\/p>\n

Current news provides plenty of examples of just how much leeway managers have to limit their workers\u2019 freedom of speech, or to encourage political activity among employees. On Aug. 2, an Arizona-based medical supplies manufacturer, Vante, dismissed CFO Adam Smith for berating a Tucson Chick-fil-A employee for working at what he considered a homophobic company. Chick-fil-A has made national headlines recently for its president\u2019s controversial comments about same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how you live with yourself and work here,\u201d Smith says in a video of the exchange, which was posted on YouTube (GOOG). \u201cThis is a horrible corporation with horrible values. You deserve better.\u201d Vante quickly fired Smith, and posted its regrets about the incident in a statement on the home page of its website.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bosses and those who work under them are not equal when it comes to free-speech legal claims. Employers have the right to take action against any employee who engages in political speech that company leaders find offensive. With a few narrow exceptions the Constitution and the federal laws derived from it only protect a person\u2019s right to expression from government interference, not from the restrictions a private employer may impose, lawyers say.<\/p>\n

Employers are not similarly restricted in expressing their political views or encouraging support for a particular candidate or cause. Not only can employers remind employees of the upcoming election and encourage them to vote, but they can base continued employment on whether a worker agrees to contribute money or time to the boss\u2019s favorite political candidate, so long as there\u2019s no state law prohibiting it. (Eight states and the District of Columbia have laws protecting employees from such mandates.)<\/p>\n

Consider the case of David Siegel, founder of Orlando (Fla.)-based Westgate Resorts, the nation\u2019s biggest time-share developer and the man behind what is planned to be the largest house in America. In February, Siegel told Bloomberg Businessweek that his efforts were largely responsible for the 2000 election of President George W. Bush. \u201cI\u2019m not bragging, I\u2019m just stating the fact: I personally got George W. Bush elected,\u201d he said. \u201cI had my managers do a survey on every employee. If they liked Bush, we made them register to vote. But not if they liked Gore.\u201d Siegel also said his company\u2019s call center made 80,000 calls on behalf of Bush\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

While federal statutes such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, and the National Labor Relations Act limit companies\u2019 rights to fire or hire workers and prevent them from joining unions, these restrictions are based only on race, religion, ethnicity, sex, age, and a few other protected categories. Political opinion isn\u2019t protected by any of these statutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment applies only to employees of the government in certain situations, and all citizens when they\u2019re confronted by the government,\u201d says Mark Trapp, an employment lawyer with Epstein Baker Green in Chicago. \u201cIn other words, freedom to speak your mind doesn\u2019t really exist in work spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a limitation that retired Air Force Colonel Morris Davis knows well. The former prosecutor of the Guantanamo Bay military commissions, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, resigned over what he perceived as systematic mistreatment and abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers at the detention camp. After taking a job with the Library of Congress, he was fired in late 2009 for refusing to recant the contents of pieces published in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post criticizing the Obama administration\u2019s failure to close the prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was shocked to see the limits of the First Amendment,\u201d Morris says. \u201cWe like to think that our rights are carved in granite, but instead it turns out they\u2019re carved in sand.\u201d Morris now teaches law at Howard University; the American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Library of Congress seeking Morris\u2019s reinstatement.<\/p>\n

However, there are valid reasons an employer would restrict political speech, beyond assuring a productive work site or suppressing opinions contrary to management. Chief among them: a fear of lawsuits alleging that an employer permitted a hostile work environment, and the risk of having to pay damages.<\/p>\n

John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative legal organization, says employers are too quick to fire people over any statement with which managers disagree. \u201cAmericans now are not generally advocates of free speech, which really is not good,\u201d Whitehead says. \u201cSomeone says anything that an employer or government official doesn\u2019t like, and they\u2019re gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bottom line is pretty simple: Be satisfied with talk at work that doesn\u2019t offend colleagues or anger the boss. \u201cThe Constitution operates as a restriction on government, not private employers,\u201d Trapp says. \u201cAn employee would do well to keep this in mind before shooting off her mouth at the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: Where Free Speech Goes To Die: The Workplace by Mike Dolgow in Business Week. The Text: In America you can say pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want to say it. Unless, that is, you\u2019re at work. Simply put, there is no First Amendment right to \u201cfree speech\u201d in the workplace\u2014potentially perilous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhere Free Speech Goes To Die<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why the workplace is the last place you should utilize your First Amendment rights.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/24\/where-free-speech-goes-to-die\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where Free Speech Goes To Die\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why the workplace 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