Comment by tomjakubowski
5 years ago
Firing people for expressing "distasteful" views publicly is nothing new. In 2003, MSNBC fired the host of their most popular program, Phil Donahue, for expressing his opposition to the Iraq War.
> An internal MSNBC memo warned Donahue was a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” providing “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”
Fortunately for Phil, he was well-off and probably wasn't relying on the income.
With at-will employment, companies have enormous leverage over their workers' freedom of expression and it's disappointing to see this letter with some ostensibly "left" signatures attached leave that consideration untouched.
On a related note: arguably one of the biggest "cancellings" of the post-9/11 era was that of the Dixie Chicks [1].
"Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
The above comment (made by the lead singer at a concert in England) was all it took for them to receive death threats and get blacklisted by thousands of radio stations in the US.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_controversy
They were hardly cancelled though, they were more feted after the controversy. They went from the CMA to winning album of the year at the Grammys, got on the cover of Rolling Stone, etc. In many ways they vaulted from the country music backwater into the mainstream.
Interestingly enough, they changed their name to “The Chicks” 2 weeks ago.
> Firing people for expressing "distasteful" views publicly is nothing new.
I don't think that is a correct synopsis of the concern. The concern is that there is no space to discuss the definition of "distasteful". There are also a bunch of amorphous terms being thrown around and any attempt to clarify those terms in general or to challenge how a person is using those terms or to explore the ramification of those terms; those efforts are themselves labeled "distasteful".
I'm hesitant to even list the terms that I don't think are well defined in our public discourse for this very reason. I anticipate that I will be immediately labeled as persona-non-grata for trying to clarify what the heck we are talking about.
> The concern is that there is no space to discuss the definition of "distasteful".
What do you mean by this? What kind of space is missing? Was that fact that being anti-war is distasteful something that was discussed and agreed upon in 2003, so that firing was alright?
Analogies are dangerous, but I'll give it a shot.
In your 2003 scenario, an analogous concern would be if someone pointed out that Saddam Hussein was indeed violating some UN provisions and the response was for that person to be fired because that observation was evidence that they were "pro-war" or not sufficiently "anti-war".
My observation wouldn't be there was no "right" to fire the person but instead would be that the logical inference that triggered the firing was faulty and ill-informed. If managers everywhere we reacting that way I might suggest that there was no space to discuss the topic without undo consequences.
I can be fired by an boss who thinks I'm being insubordinate, they have that right. But it would be helpful if that boss had some evidence that I was being insubordinate and didn't use my request to clarify my insubordination as evidence that I was being insubordinate.
I'm very on board with ending at-will employment, but it would only address a small subset of the issues they're describing. Employment protections won't prevent books from being withdrawn, journalists and professors from being censured, or leaders from being forced to resign.
Right, nor should it. The same protections that would keep a person from being forced to step down when someone discovers they were pro-Iraq war would be used to protect them from being forced to step down when someone discovers they're a Klan leader.