WARNING: Believing that the First Amendment gives you the legal right to express your opinion may be hazardous to your career.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Of course, that refers only to Congress. It says nothing about employers–and especially those self-appointed pseudo-gods who claim to be the personification of virtue and infallibility.
If you doubt it, just ask Johnny Cook, who until recently worked as a bus driver for the Haralson County Middle School in Georgia.
In late May, a sixth-grade student boarding Cook’s school bus said he was still hungry. Cook asked why, and the student said he hadn’t been given any lunch.
The reason: He had been forty cents short for buying a reduced lunch. So he hadn’t been given anything, not even the peanut butter offered to everyone else.
Furious, Cook vented his spleen on his Facebook page on May 21:
“This child is already on reduced lunch [program] and we can’t let him eat. Are you kidding me? I’m certian there was leftover food thrown away today.
“But kids were turned away because they didn’t have .40 on there account. As a tax payer I would much rather feed a child than throw it away. I would rather feed a child than to give food stamps to a crack head.”
Just two days later, Cook was fired over that post.
Johnny Cook and friends
The “official reason,” as given by Superintendent Brett Stanton, was that Cook had violated the school’s social media policy by daring to express his opinion publicly.
The policy states:
“Students who post or contribute any comment or content on social networking sites that cause a substantial disruption to the instructional environment are subject to disciplinary procedures.
“Employees who post or contribute any comment or content on social networking sites that causes a substantial disruption to the instructional environment are subject to disciplinary procedures up and including termination.”
This is similar to the policies–and atmosphere–of the Joseph McCarthy “smear and fear” era of the 1950s. You didn’t have to actually be proven an actual Communist, or even a Communist sympathizer.
All that was neeeded to condemn you to permanent unemployment was to become “controversial.” That way, the employer didn’t have to actually prove the employee’s unfitness.
The Almighty Employer need only declare: “Your usefulness to me is over.”
Consider the statement offered by Superintendent Stanton: “I can assure you it did not happen,” he told the CBS affiliate in Atlanta.
And how could he be so certain? Because, said Stanton, he had thoroughly investigated the incident.
“The video surveillance footage clearly shows that the student never went through the lunch lines at the county middle school,” Stanton said.
Therefore, Stanton said, the boy couldn’t have been offered the bagged lunch for students in his situation.
When asked if someone should have noticed the boy wasn’t eating lunch, he had a ready excuse for that: “When you have almost 1,000 students, it’s very difficult to notice.”
Stanton wouldn’t discuss Cook’s termination because it’s a personnel matter, but did say the school district has a strict Facebook policy.
CBS Atlanta contacted the sixth-grader’s family–who backed up Cook’s story.
Cook, who is married and the father of two kids, told CBS Atlanta that he felt in his “heart of hearts the kid was telling the truth.”
A petition has been posted to Change.org demanding that Cook be reinstated. It has so far gained more than 10,000 signatures.
Nor is Cook the only victim of employers who have no regard for the First Amendment.
Ashley Warden, a waitress at an Oklahoma City Chili’s insulted “stupid cops” on her Facebook page. In 2012, her potty-training toddler pulled down his pants in his grandmother’s front yard–and a passing officer gave Warden a public urination ticket for $2,500.
Warden was quickly fired. In an official statement, Chilli’s gave this excuse:
“With the changing world of digital and social media, Chili’s has Social Media Guidelines in place, asking our team members to always be respectful of our guests and to use proper judgement when discussing actions in the work place. After looking into the matter, we have taken action to prevent this from happening again.”
Put more honestly: “We have taken action to prevent” other employees from daring to exercise their own First Amendment rights.
Employers need to be legally forced to show as much respect for the free speech rights of Americans as Congress is required to.
Until this happens, the workplace will continue to resemble George Orwell’s vision of 1984–a world where anyone can become a “non-person” for the most trivial of reasons.
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH ISN’T FREE
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 7, 2015 at 1:56 amWARNING: Believing that the First Amendment gives you the legal right to express your opinion may be hazardous to your career.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The First Amendment
Of course, that refers only to Congress.
It says nothing about employers–and especially those self-appointed pseudo-gods who set themselves up as judges of virtue and infallibility.
If you doubt it, just ask Scott Lees, who until March had worked for four years as boys head lacrosse coach at Fryeburg Academy.
Fryeburg Academy
His crime? Posting to his personal Facebook page an open letter to President Barack Obama that one of his friends had emailed him.
Lees posted the letter on March 17. Two days later, he was ordered to resign from his four-year position as the academy’s lacrosse coach.
The letter had been written in response to a speech Obama gave in Cairo in 2009. In this, Obama said, “I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s history.”
Among the issues the letter raised:
“Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians.
“Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians.
“Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence? Bill of Rights? Didn’t think so.
“Did Muslims fight for this country’s freedom from England? No. “Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in America? No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery.
“Your own half-brother, a devout Muslim, still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as ‘pug nosed slaves.’ Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family’s “rich Islamic heritage,” doesn’t it Mr. Obama?
“Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country? Not present. There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking side by side with Martin Luther King, Jr. or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights.”
(The most prominent Muslim group in America at the time of the civil rights movement was the Nation of Islam. Its onetime spokesman, Malcom X, preached a gospel of separation of the races–and condemned whites as “blue-eyed devils.”)
“Where were Muslims during this country’s Woman’s Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture.
“So much so, that often they are beaten for not wearing the ‘hajib’ or for talking to a man who is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women’s rights, aren’t they?
Click here: Women’s Rights Under Sharia “
Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazis in killing Jews.
Click here: Amazon.com: Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam (9781400066537): David G. Dalin, John F. Ro
“Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren’t flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East….
“And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the “rich heritage” Muslims have here in America…”
Interviewed by Top Right News, Lees, 48, said he had never before been fired and had been coaching since 1992.
Click here: Just Two Days After Sharing an ‘Open Letter’ to Obama on Facebook, This Veteran Coach Was Forced to Resign | Top R
Fryeburg Academy is a private school in Fryeburg, Maine.
Lees said that he was supposed to meet with Head of Schools Erin Mayo and Dean Charlie Tryder on March 19. But Athletic Director Sue Thurston told him a decision to fire him had already been made.
Mayo told Top Right News that “Scott Lees did post a message on Facebook regarding Muslim people last week that was negative and, of course, public in nature.”
Mayo was right on two counts about the Facebook post: It was negative and public.
What she didn’t say was: It was also entirely historically accurate. It did not urge its readers to violate the law. It did not defame anyone (unless telling the truth about a group’s documented activities counts as defamation).
This is similar to the policies–and atmosphere–of the Joseph McCarthy “smear and fear” era of the 1950s. You didn’t have to actually be proven an actual Communist, or even a Communist sympathizer.
All that was needed to condemn you to permanent unemployment was to become “controversial.” That way, the employer didn’t have to actually prove the employee’s unfitness.
An employee’s right to out-of-work speech should be fully protected unless it crosses the legal line–such as committing libel or urging others to violate the law.
And employers who fire him for embracing his First Amendment right should be criminally prosecuted.
Until this happens, the workplace will continue to resemble George Orwell’s vision of 1984–a world where anyone can become a “non-person” for the most trivial of reasons.
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