People are weirdly inconsistent

[drwex]

(nu? this is news?)

So, Brendan Eich is now out as CEO of Mozilla. The proximate cause is that he supported attempts to keep same-sex couples from having equal marriage rights. I happen to think that's severely wrong-headed, but I also think that people who called for his ouster are being weirdly inconsistent, and I refused to sign the petitions calling for him to resign.

You may recall that the case known as Hobby Lobby was just argued before the Supreme Court. And we generally take as given that people like me who are left/liberal oppose Hobby Lobby's attempt to force its founders' religious views onto the employees. One very important legal concept in this case is that the corporation is not its founders, nor the people who run it. The people who run Hobby Lobby can oppose abortion all they want, but that's a personal matter and should not (we argue) grant them a religious exemption to healthcare coverage rules.

Perhaps you see where I'm going with this: how can people argue that Hobby Lobby is not its founders and leaders, but somehow Mozilla is? Had there been a petition calling on the board of Mozilla to stop picking candidates who are a bad fit for the CEO spot, I'd've signed that. But I can't see how someone can consistently hold the view that Hobby Lobby is separate from its senior executives' beliefs and Mozilla is not.

I don't like Eich's view, but his qualification to run Mozilla is his experience and other factors related to the organization. If the board found him to be qualified, then his individual political views ought not to enter into it. And if they do enter into it, then it's the Board's fault for not doing their jobs in selecting the right CEO candidate. I heard that three board members resigned over this, but they were among those who opposed Eich; personally, I think it's the other ones who ought to resign.

Comments

[drwex]

Your hypotheticals are so far removed from the facts that I don't think I can make much of it. But let's address them.

First of all, you don't have free speech at work, or in many private workplaces even if you're not an employee, in the sense you think of it. There's a reason most employees are termed "at will" - it means that the employer can fire you as they please. Some (many) C-level executives are not at-will, but are hired under contracts with specific restrictions on how and when they can be terminated and at what cost.

There are some exceptions to this, but they're rather narrow. You can't terminate (or demote, or pass over for promotion, or pay less, or otherwise treat unequally) members of a protected class without showing good cause. That includes women, older people, people of color, etc. It might now also include GLBTQ etc people - some (many) states have laws on that but there is no Federal law protecting this class of persons.

There's another class of exemptions for semi-public places such as malls, but that's farther afield.

The question of whether someone can be terminated for speech outside of work is also well-settled law: yes. People have been fired for Facebook posts, for example. In some jobs your speech is even further restricted. Many places prohibit public employees from engaging in direct political participation, particularly while in uniform. Some places have even gone so far as to extend such bans to all municipal employees including such people as librarians. I think that's silly, but it's been held legal.

But again, Eich wasn't terminated. He resigned. I'm having a hard time seeing how your analogy addresses the point I'm trying to make. I hypothesize that your point is something like "It's OK to call for the resignation of someone whose political views we don't like" to which I say "Sure. And...?" because I'm at a loss to see how this addresses the dichotomy I started with.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

Yet more reasons to never work for a governmental entity. But that's not why I'm commenting.

You said "you don't have free speech at work". In reality, one has the right of free speech wherever one damn well pleases, BUT there are often consequences to that speech, which one should consider before speaking. The difference in attitude is one I'd generically promote.

Also -- personally, I think the employers that fire people for Facebook posts (or the like) are idiots, and they're getting the quality of employee they deserve. Young poorly-paid people generically despise their employers for being idiots and not paying them better, and they blow off steam by posting about their frustration on social media. If the companies don't already realize that, then they're even stupider than their policies.

[drwex]

You're right that "you don't have free speech at work" is shorthand for "the free speech protections people generally associate with the First Amendment don't apply in workplaces."

I also just came out of many years of working for the financial industry, where people are extra-careful about what they say because not-well-thought-out words may be (mis)interpreted as giving financial advice, which can leave both the individual and their employer in a liable position. This applies regardless of whether one posts to Facebook or whatever. That's not to say that some employers are not idiots about employees' outside-of-work speech, but guess what, there are idiots everywhere.