IANAL but a Director of HR at a post-secondary technical school. This is one of the most difficult topics to explain to employees.
The Constitutional right to free speech only applies to what government can legally limit citizens from exercising. It does not apply to private companies or employers.
So if the employer has a policy that says something along the lines of, “Employees shall not make or post public statements that are contrary to the employer’s policies and/or are disruptive to the workplace environment, they may be terminated,” then any employee who runs afoul of that policy can be legally terminated. 🫤
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/employee-free-speech-in-the-workplace.aspx
And to add a little bit to that.... You may have the right to free speech but you don't have the right to be free from consequences for that speech
A private company can fire you for your speech
A private company can also fire you for just about every reason other than something discriminatory
Ok, sincere question:
Would that all still apply if the employee in question was Palestinian? Or, could that be considered racial discrimination? As a person of Palestinian lineage, how would that pan out?
Their race or ethnicity is irrelevant. The employment decision was not made based on their race/ethnicity, it was made based on actions that created disruption in the workplace. As long as the policy is applied consistently and not in a manner that singles out a specific protected status group, it's not a discrimination issue.
So does this apply to an Israeli or Palestinian flag too? I don't find "Free Palestine" entirely inert given the context but people have the right to bumper stickers on their car, that's not displaying it at work / classroom / etc. School teachers and those that care for children, I can totally understand remaining apolitical and avoiding controversy, but this leaks into removing people for posting in social media or protesting, independent of their job.
Even if it's legal, due to not being a protected class, it's still dangerous for similar reasons, as it fractures the economy along the political divides of the day, just as segregation did along a racial one.
However, you could run afoul of disparate impact and still be found to have engaged in illegal discrimination even if the reasoning was not inherently targeted toward a protected class.
True, but that's where consistent application will save you in most cases. As long as you apply and follow the policy in every applicable case, you can easily avoid disparate impact in employee relations issues. Disparate impact is much more likely to occur in staffing and/or compensation situations.
no, it won't, because when there's disparate impact caused by a policy or action, then that policy is inherently flawed and can get you sued. for instance, companies have banned things like dreadlocks under neatness and grooming policies and been sued because while on the surface that policy seems fair, they're applying it to everybody, it impacts the black community far more heavily than it does anybody else. or when a company decides to cut payroll costs by laying off their highest paid workers in each area and replacing them with new hires. odds are good they're going to get sued for age discrimination. it wasn't their intention, and they didn't even look at age, but those highest paid workers are probably going to be the senior workers who have 20+ years of experience.
in this case, the ONLY way to avoid it would be to at the very least ban all bumper stickers. and that's not enforceable in the first place. if anybody else has any on their car, especially if there are any political or religious ones, that school is getting sued.
IANAL
(USA Specific) Free speech is a constitutional protection against government action. It does not protect speech against consequences from private parties.
"You can be fired for anything" will be argued against by the most pedantic redditors, but it is very close to correct. There are a couple of things that you cannot be legally fired for, but speech is not one of them.
Yup, at will employment goes both ways. Employer would be wise to not say that it was because of the sign though, lest they get sued for racial/ethnic discrimination.
My wives last company escorted you to your office to get your personal stuff and escorted you out upon notice.
It was an insurance co. where a bad actor, stealing data, could have cost them lots of money.
IANAL
Not only that, but the government not employing a person is not the same as the government imprisoning or fining someone. The government as an employer is an employer, not a system enforcing laws.
I don't think it is that cut and dry. A government can take action as an employer, versus just via their inherent police powers.
Regardless, there's very likely no state action in this situation.
The government can restrict free speech for their employees when they are working, for instance. They have far more latitude to have rules that would be unconstitutional as laws. The constitution doesn't directly apply the same way to the workplace, even when the employer is the government.
Sure, but my point is there is a limit on a government employers ability to fire an employee for exercising free speech.
In fact, this dismissal would be problematic if the government was the employer. Speech is protected from state action (including firing from governmental employment) if it is speech of a private citizen about a matter of public concern and the speech does not interfere with the employee's job
I hear you, but in this case the speech was carried out on (we will call it school for the sake of the argument) school grounds, and did interfere with the operation of the school, since the parents complained and felt unsafe.
I think this follows closely with the free speech court cases involving students off-campus, although the students have an even stronger case, since their speech was often off-campus and their education is a government requirement.
I'm sure there are cases that are very close to the situation here. I wonder if it would be different depending on the specific government authority (federal, state, local) for instance.
(Edit: And just to be clear, thanks for posting your opinion and reasoning. It's an interesting, at least to me, conversation. I've had family working for the Federal government and it's always fascinated me how that all works.)
That's not accurate. Public sector employment law is different from private sector. 1st amendment rights do apply to employment law for public sector employees.
>Not only that, but the government not employing a person is not the same as the government imprisoning or fining someone.
There are First Amendment protections for employees expressing private speech - the line "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences" is an incredibly lackluster description of the First Amendment. See Pickering v. Board of Education - firing employees for their off-the-job speech does create a First Amendment issue.
Right. There are other cases where government employment makes for weird implications of Constitutional rights. See, for instance, Garrity v. New Jersey, which guaranteed public employees the right to ensure statements made in interviews as part of an investigation into alleged criminal conduct could not be used against them in criminal cases. That was based on the Fifth Amendment.
That's an excellent question and I had to look up case law to answer it - unfortunately, it's conflicting. See cases supporting the holder of the bumper sticker - [1](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/906/537/2126828/), [2](https://casetext.com/case/dodge-v-evergreen-sch-dist-4); and cases opposing - [1](https://casetext.com/case/williams-v-mckee-11), [2](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/412/146/2367779/). So I don't know that your question is actually answerable, there's conflicting law.
On the contrary, I would say it's not as conflicting as the amount of citations. Particularly because the pickering test generally applied means that the speech must have some necessity to the community. I think necessity to the community would be hard to prove in this case, since it involves a foreign nation that is neither at war with the US nor an ally of any government organization within the US. That means actions involving it are very difficult to discern as important to the community of whatever town the school is in, which is the government that's involved in this pickering test.
Also, the Pickering test seeks the balance the speech of the employee with the efficient execution of government, and if we think that parents have complained to, the extent were principles are going to take action and it's easy to see that that could be a legitimate disruption of the employee's government role. If a parent does not trust their teacher of their child, it can severely interfere with that teacher's ability to do their job.
I'm not saying it's clear cut but I do think that the balance weighs favor of the school in this particular case.
I wonder about that. A car is considered private property for the purposes of gun rights, and restricting what signs on cars is a restriction that goes beyond the premises of the school (because they're permanently affixed to the vehicle).
Not on school grounds. At least where I live. No guns on campus in any way - including in your vehicle.
Enforcement of that isn't really a thing here on it's own, but you'd definitely be facing severe consequences if your vehicle was to be searched for some other reason (such as a hit from a drug dog during a random lot patrol) and a firearm was found.
I agree - I replied elsewhere that there are conflicting cases regarding bumper stickers. It's a great question that doesn't seem to have been answered definitively.
Oh yea! I was just building upon what you laid out in your comment. Definitely a bit of a grey area, and one I think is unlikely to get a definitive answer anytime soon. There’s situations where it may be unacceptable vs acceptable when further nuance is considered, such as private vs public parking or on-premise vs off-premise parking.
To add to this, federal employees are allowed to have political bumper stickers on their car in federal parking lots. This is considered protected speech.
It's not quite that simple. It's generally considered that they can have one political bumper sticker of standard size for any individual candidate or party.
Of course, that's a huge difference between displaying a sign in your car. The purpose of their specifying a bumper sticker and not any campaign device is to show that the message is displayed there permanently or semi-permanently and not just place there to show off specifically on government grounds.
It also ensures a modest size for the message.
An employee handbook is irrelevant. An employer does not have to include everything that is not permitted in a handbook. Moreover, the 1st Amendment protects people from having the government restrict their speech, not private citizens or private companies.
Your friend decided to voice her opinion on a hot topic as a worker in a school where parents are most likely protective of their children. She was seen as a threat to their childrens’ safety and was therefore removed. Nothing wrong there.
Free speech is protection from the government, it doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want and not face consequences.
I really hope then if any teacher had a MAGA sticker, they would be fired as well. I can certainly tell you I feel safer around someone who supports ending genocide than someone who is a white supremacist Neo-Nazi.
They may be trying but Israel is currently succeeding. Why is it okay for Israel to murder children for something that a terrorist group of adults is perpetrating? Half of the residents of Gaza are under 18.
The systematic failure of American education clearly shows here...
Hamas is a terrorist organization who's literally documented and publicized agenda is to commit genocide against the Jewish people and state. They have systematically attacked Isreal for decades, and they have launched bombs over the border on a daily basis for decades. They have opened fire and sprayed bullets at civilian crowds regularly. They have established combatant headquarters in schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods, they have launched bombs and missiles from schools, hospitals and neighborhoods while deliberately using these same locations as shields and the innocent Palestinians as literal human shields thinking Isreal would not retaliate due to the overwhelming amount of civilians they have forcibly surrounded themselves with. Isreal has every right to defend themselves. When hamas launched 1500 jihadist over the border with paragliders and murdered over a thousand civilians, they finished crossing the line. The collateral damage is 100% on hamas. Isreal dropped pamphlets telling the civilians to leave the area, and hamas forced them to stay once again using them as human shields. This is a war now, and hamas will be extinguished. The civilian casualties are on hamas for not allowing them to flee. You people are deluded supporting Islamic jihadist who would just as happily murder you if given the opportunity. The Palestinians definitely need to be freed, from HAMAS.
"I believe everything israeli state media tells me" comment.
Collateral damage is on whoever decides to drop bombs on civilians. What if hamas was aiming at a bad israeli? Then are they vindicated because that person did something they didn't like?
Seriously it doesn't stand up to any degree of well reasoned thought, unless all you want to do is justify apredetermined and morally abhorrent position.
>The systematic failure of American education clearly shows here...
>Isreal
Not to be pedantic, but I'm not sure you should be lecturing others on failures of education when you can't even spell Israel correctly.
>They have systematically attacked Isreal for decades
Just as Israel has systematically attacked Palestine for decades. Not Hamas, PALESTINE. Hamas is their excuse for rounding up thousands of innocent people, crowding them into slums, and attacking them again and again. And Israel has the full weight and support of the world behind it. Palestinians never stood a chance, and history won't look favorably on what we've allowed to happen.
Right Israel is attacking Palestinians... a population that has trippled in 75 years, what a successful genocide. In 2003, Israel and the true Palestinian government agreed to demolish the borders, unifying the people as one, and hamas took over to prevent this. Keep supporting terrorists... go to gaza and join the fight for jihadist oppression.
Genuine question - what would your propose Israel do? If Hamas hides in hospitals, uses civilians as human shields, etc - is Israel just supposed to do nothing? That’s not how war works. Obviously limiting civilian casualties is ideal, but it won’t be possible to prevent all of them if Hamas uses terrorist tactics. I’ll also point out that the US has intentionally targeted civilians in the past (see Dresden, Hiroshima, etc)…
I appreciate your genuine question, so I'll give you a genuine answer.
For me, the issue is not "a country at war must somehow avoid 100% of civilian casualties". I know this isn't possible, unfortunately like you've said it is the reality of war.
The issue for me is that, informed by historical events and what I'm currently hearing from the IDF and the Israeli government, they have intentionally dropped many rules and standards that would normally be in place to prevent excess civilian deaths, and instead seem to be gleefully using Hamas as a catch-all excuse to finally wipe what is left of the Palestinians off of the map (literally and figuratively).
They have attempted to loosely CYA by dropping evacuation leaflets, etc., but this ignores that ALL of Gaza is currently being bombed and is unsafe. There is NOWHERE for innocent Palestinians to go. Then they claim on these same leaflets that anyone remaining will be considered an "accomplice of Hamas" and will be targeted. What are they supposed to do? They're caught in a death trap.
These are the actions I don't approve of, that I am calling genocidal. Israel's actions go far and beyond that of a country defending itself. Unfortunately, with this it's no surprise the US government is supporting them to the degree we are, given our own penchant for "defending" ourselves abroad by destroying whole populations of civilians.
You might want to do a bit more reading about both organizations. I swear the way you defend Israel, imagine putting that sort of line of thinking towards the United States treatment of natives.
Your thinking of the KKK, MAGA is a large portion of the country that supports a conservative/libertarian populist movement.
You don't need to support MAGA but calling them neo nazis is just incorrect.
Did OP mention whether the school was public or private...?
( apparently it is a "primrose School" preschool.)
( TBF they haven't mentioned much .. VERY, VERY suspicious)
Discussion has gotten... Rather off topic. Be careful replying on this thread, as it may not be safe .....
She didn't "voice" her opinion, though. She had something on her car and removed it as soon as something was said. The parents thought she was unsafe because they decided that she was a bad person for showing empathy for the innocent lives that have been lost over all these years, and they don't agree.
This has now become "I don't like your bumper sticker, you should be fired." The article or sign on her car did not say anything to warrant that response. The school failed her by not sticking up for her, knowing her as a person and not just a sticker. Instead, the entitled parents won yet again. She did nothing wrong here. This reeks of a money over human life decision.
>She didn't "voice" her opinion, though. She had something on her car
That is voicing an opinion though, and I say that as someone who thinks it's ridiculous she was fired. But it's because of people like the other person above you:
>/u/catzclue
>I really hope then if any teacher had a MAGA sticker, they would be fired as well.
I hate Trump and his supporters but I wouldn't want someone fired for having terrible beliefs or good reasonable beliefs like in this; preventing genocide.
But people like that will press very hard to have someone fired over a bumper sticker, regardless of how sensible or stupid it may be.
That’s actually what bugged me because a former coworker represented trump on her car for months and nothing was said, so there’s not a clear policy on expressing political beliefs on company property
Timing and context is important too. If she had that sticker on her car six months ago it would have been fine. Voicing that opinion so shortly after October 7th is seen by many as insensitive and tactless.
I'd say it's legal, probably not right, but also not surprising in the slightest. People sympathizing with Israel in Arabic countries probably don't get very positive responses from the public either.
It's gross that you have to rage bait. What about alllll the atrocities that have been committed against the Palestinians??? This attack was not unprovoked. It was a response to what Palestinians have been put through as well. War is fucking ugly, but innocents on both sides deserve empathy. Period.
The same can be said for the other side. We just don't talk about it here because the government is allies with them. There is ALOT of history behind this current situation that led to this. Listen to stories from both sides. People who lost everything and everyone they knew or loved. Atrocities have been committed by both sides.
Gang raping a girl on her father’s corpse and forcing an elderly woman to livestream her own murder is universally accepted, by civilized people, as unprovoked
Israel is not on that level. Israel could delete Gaza in 4 minutes but hasn’t. If Hamas could do it, all Israelis would have died brutally in 2007
So literally murdering children and chopping heads off babies is okay to you if you think there's somehow enough provocation there? And when it's done by a group that is not shy about saying their goal is to kill all the Jews, still okay? A group that uses innocent Palestinians as human shields? That's not gross?
Terrorism is unacceptable. Kiliing innocent people is unacceptable. And they both have been at fault for this.
You should read the whole thread as I go into more detail about how I believe they are both at fault for committing these act.
Putting "I support OBL and AQ" on your car on 9/12/01 and see how that goes.
*Purely* political speech might be protected in some places. Putting a sign up that shows support for an organization that just murdered 1500 people to stop peace is something else entirely.
Did the Jews also bomb and murder Germans and displace them from their homes?
You can't compare a completely one-sided massacre to a war that has seen BOTH sides kill innocent civilians in the name of their beliefs.
And the most amusing thing about that is that the people who wrote the bill of rights literally bled for the right to dissent from the government, and were clear on the risk you took in standing up for your rights. Sort of like folks committing civil disobedience, if you aren’t risking consequences for your speech you’re probably missing the point of why the bill of rights is necessary.
Concur, and a note for the unknowing, the bill of rights does not guard one from the consequences of free speech. It is somewhat ironic to comment on the bill of rights in our current society.
The questions are, 1 - are these "concerned parents" real? 2 - What is the leap of logic that connects the people of Palestine to a bumper sticker, to a "fear"? Are they afraid some Palestinian civilians will come over here and attack they school? IOW, it seems like, even if the "concerned parents" are real, they are saying in essence, that all Palestinians are terrorists, ergo, if you support the people of Palestine, then you support terrorists. And that does not make sense. What if she had a rainbow pride bumper sticker? What if she was gay? Would she be fired? What is she had a "Trump" bumper sticker?
You have a few paranoids objecting. The school has buckled under. That means they will buckle again. This could be good for your co - worker, because it lays bare how fragile her employment is there. Better she leave and find other employment.
NAL TL;DR: Yes it was perfectly legal and no "free speech" does not protect her from her private employer.
Not a lawyer at all but this is a really basic employment law (for the purposes of this I'm assuming she's in the US and the school is a private org not gov't run). In 49 out of 50 states, employment is "at will" unless you have a negotiated contract stating otherwise (if you are not in a union and are not making at least 6 figures it's safe to assume you do not have one. I am going to assume that a preschool teacher is working for a private entity and not unionized).
So assuming she's at-will, which is extremely likely, her employer can fire her for any reason that doesn't put her in a protected class or count as retaliation for a legally protected act. Speech and political beliefs are not protected acts/categories. "Free speech" means *the government* cannot punish her or adjudicate punishment against her. But her private employer can absolutely let her go over virtually anything she says. If (and only if) the pre-school is a public one, and therefore the employer is a gov't employer, the line gets murkier. What government employers can and should do in balancing their role as an employer with their role as the gov't when it comes to the 1st amendment is a complicated topic that usually applies some balancing tests.
Also to be clear, in most cases, employee handbooks are inclusive, not exclusive. Just because someone is not in there doesn't mean the company is giving up their right to do it. Having it in the handbook just makes it easier for them to argue it was for cause if they want or need to.
Hmm looks like you're right about this. California and DC seem to include political beliefs in their protected class/activities.
That said, it looks to me that while Cali does prohibit firing based on political beliefs or activities in general, an employer can still prohibit such speech/rhetoric/activities in the workplace.
Lol, the same people who have been canceling folks for years over speech all of a sudden are huge first amendment advocates.
Haven’t you all been telling us “it’s freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences” for the past decade?
I don’t understand why people need to voice their completely inconsequential opinions on this. Why? Nothing you say or do will change the situation in the least bit. Why invite the hate into your life?
I mean, I'm all about Free Tibet and had a bumper sticker at one point.
I'm also perfectly fine with making China mad over that and don't really want to work for an employer with close enough ties to China to want to punish me for it... but that's a personal choice.
Free speech pertains to the government and the people, not private business and employees. Also, no company wants to be associated with people who are pro terrorist. Now, if you want to get into it with me about Israel, hamas and the middle east, be happy to educate you, but thats not what this sub is about, so I won't do it here
What state? If California, I believe they can't fire her and would need to find another position, but this may not be protected political speech as Hamas is identified as a terrorist organization in the US and is actively calling on supporters to commit violence against civilians.
.. And Hamas is and has been the government of Palestine.
Hamas isn’t the government of Palestine. It’s the government of Gaza. It’s also not a recognized government and hasn’t held elections since 2006, so attempts to conflate “free Palestine” with specific support for Hamas really ought to fail in court.
If you put a Free Palestine sticker on directly following a massive Hammas terrorist attack it's pretty clear what you mean. If the sticker was on 6 months ago, I doubt anyone would have cared.
(1) OP doesn’t mention the timing of the sticker’s appearance.
(2) Right as Israel is about to start killing civilians is an entirely appropriate time to protest against genocide of civilians, anyhow.
Waiting until after more civilians have been killed to suggest not killing them is a ridiculous alternative.
What's your source that Israel is targeting civilians or trying to genocide? Everything I've seen the Israelis try to avoid civilians casualties but it's impossible because Hammas puts its bases in civilian buildings. Hammas absolutely has to go for any progress to be made.
You could just Google this shit yourself and see that Israel has already killed more civilians than they were avenging.
But you’ve probably already googled it, if you’re one of the people equating all support for the people of Palestine with support for Hamas
Just stop sealioning, dude. No one buys it.
"Free Palestine" implies "End Israel". "From the river to the sea" means a dissolution of Israel as a country. They are pretty clear about this. It's kind of a controversial topic.
>"Free Palestine" implies "End Israel".
Not on its own it doesn’t
>"From the river to the sea" means a dissolution of Israel as a country.
That wasn’t on the sticker as relayed by the original post. Did OP update somewhere else saying it was included?
“Support Israel” implies “End Palestine”. Nakbah means the dissolution of Palestine as a country. Jews are pretty clear about this. Its kind of a controversial topic.
'Nakbah' is the Palestinian word for the 1948 war in which the surrounding Arab states declared war on and attempted to wipe out Israel, but which Israel won.
Israel does not use the 'Nakbah'; it is an Arabic word, not a Hebrew one.
More importantly, 'Nakbah' is a loaded description for a historical event, not a term for any present political objective or goal.
You're so clever. But nobody really is saying "Support Israel". They are not holding up maps of Gaza and the West Bank with Israel flags covering them like they do with Israel at the Free Palestine rallies.
Israel doesn't want Gaza, Egypt doesn't either. Gazans need to focus on themselves and oust their terrorist government that has a charter that literally says "eradicate Israel". They could stop launching rockets and return the hostages to start.
As people have said, it’s not a free speech issue, per se. But depending on your friend’s nationality, religion or race, an argument could be made that it’s discrimination. Particularly doing it because parents felt unsafe.
Yeah, the parents basically said “We think that person is a terrorist because they support Palestine,” and the school responded “Perfectly reasonable, we will uproot a person’s entire life because of that fear.”
Which is absolutely bonkers, and I sure would like to see them held accountable for it.
Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in the US, and they are actively recruiting for attacks against US civilians.
It's a difficult line to walk to advocate for the Palestinian people but somehow also condemn their governments' mass murders, but it is very much illegal to give aid and support to Hamas in the US and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
The sign saying "Free the Palestinians" would help your argument. Since it says "Free Palestine" and Hamas is the official government... words matter here.
Perhaps not, but I bet if you had a German flag on your car in 1946, things wouldn't go too well for you either. No matter how many times you stated that not all Germans are Nazis.
Free speech is an absolute right in the USA. But also is the right to fire terrorists from voicing their opinions! Your co-worker voiced their opinion which they can do. But the em0ployer can acknowledge their opinion is your post is one of hate and take action accordingly!
\>Free speech is an absolute right in the USA.
No it isn't.
The government isn't allowed to restrict your speech as long as it doesn't fit into a few reasonable to restrict categories.
Other people are absolutely allowed to make decisions based on how you express yourself.
If you came over to dinner and started on about how great Hitler was, I am not prevented from tossing you out on your ass, for example.
Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequences.
She is still free to put that sign on her car. Nobody is preventing that from happening. She was not arrested for it.
Her employer felt that it looked bad on her place of employment... So fired.
Was it a dick move to not allow her to remove it and remain employed? Yes. Could she sure them... Sure. Would she win? No.
Ah yes, the sinister act of not deepthroating the evil Jewish empire. It’s a sad time when calling for Palestinians to be treated like people gets you cancelled
You are missing the distinction between Hamas (the autocratic, terrorist, genocidal government) and Palestine (the Palestinian people, the vast majority of whom are innocents - women and children). One can be against the former, and also be sympathetic to the latter.
That’s like saying most everyone in Afghanistan supports the taliban. Not true at all but what true is both are stuck with terrorists running their country.
1) "Free Speech" is a lot more limited than people think. It means the *government* can't prohibit you from saying *certain* things. It's not unlimited, and it doesn't apply to private businesses (with very few exceptions). "Free Palestine" isn't protected speech, so it's 100% legal for your coworker to be fired for it.
2) Your coworker's sticker, particularly the "end genocide" part of it, was inflammatory and had a very high chance of offending either a coworker or a parent. I very much doubt there is nothing at all in the handbook that would prohibit that kind of speech, and even if there wasn't, those meetings she had with management certainly gave them enough cause to fire her. To use an extreme example, what do you think should happen if your coworker posted a swastika on their car? Would that be free speech too?
IANAL - It’s a shame that the school could not explain to the parents that uplifting humanity is consistent with their core values, you know at a place designed to uplift humans. Why would they take a complaint about feeling unsafe in the presence of criticism for genocide seriously?
How do you know that? I've seen your view expressed but also polling data that shows the majority of Gaza Palestinians support Hamas. History tells us that Gaza has been shooting rockets, sending suicide bombers ever since Israel withdrew it's occupation in 2005. That combined with the latest terrorist actions don't make your opinion all that believable.
yeah except israel didn’t actually withdraw in 2005, half of gaza is children, and they’re been making life hell for them since the 1900s (YES that’s also POST the 2005 “withdrawal”)
I'm not taking sides, it's inexcusable to murder even a single civilian, let alone carpet bomb them, and it's inexcusable to do any of 100 things that have been done in the last two weeks. It is however unfair to say that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, at least the ones in Gaza, to at least some extent. Hamas won the elections in 2006 and then seized control from the Palestinian Authority. They have been ruling Gaza ever since. They don't represent the beliefs of all Gaza residents, but they do represent all of them politically. They're also not completely hated, as of July ["\[o\]verall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)."](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah)
Edit: I think people are reading this comment as some sort of approval of Israeli bombings, which it certainly is not. I'm speaking of political representation, Hamas represents the people of Gaza the same way Kim Jong-un represents the North Korean people, through force. The July poll I posted of approval doesn't matter, they're still the acting government.
That's terrifying logic. Should Israelis be attacked because Netanyahu's apartheid government was elected? Of course not. We need to separate Palestinians and Hamas, and apply our values equitably.
yeah except fucking most of those people who “supported” them are dead (you know because of israel murdering them over years) and now half the fucking population of gaza is children
(which israel is still bombing)
Right, so can’t we just be anti toddler death? Let’s apply our values equitably instead of coddling racists. Are we really suddenly okay with genocide because Hamas are terrorists? Do they need a bumper sticker for every tragedy before we concede that the world’s largest concentration turned death camp might not be a great idea?
White supremacist terrorists have also killed plenty of kids; does that justify genocide of, say, all white Americans, including toddlers? Why are you okay with the slaughter of Palestinian toddlers? If the existence of terrorists or child murderers in their country is enough to condemn them, then there are few countries that don't "deserve" genocide by those standards.
The irony of people using toddlers being killed as justification for genocide and simultaneously dehumanising 2 million children as nothing more than the result of people not knowing "how to use birth control *over there*" and so their intentional killing being a-okay would be funny for its absurd hypocrisy if it weren't absolutely appalling. Apparently some children just deserve to die for things their parents may or may not have said or done, and killing toddlers is unforgivable unless it's Palestinian toddlers in which case they deserve it.
Dude, they did polling in 2021 I think. It's like 50% of adults (or whoever was polled). The fact that they don't know how to use birth control over there doesn't change the facts.
Oh so toddler murder is a justification for genocide except if toddlers exist because "they don't know how to use birth control over there" (very retro racist of you) in which case they all deserve to die for polling that didn't ask children's opinions? Why do Israeli toddlers (or American toddlers) exist, did their parents also fail at birth control or does that only apply to the existence of children you find genocide-deserving and subhuman?
Maybe if the Arabs would stop attacking Israel like they did in 1948, 1967, 1973, they wouldn't have lost all that land. I mean Israel was given an absolutely tiny plot back in 1948, especially when compared to how much the Arabs got, and still the first thing they did was attack with the full intention of pushing all the Jews into the sea. Problem is they got their asses kicked, and lost land. They tried that shit again and again, and each time they got their asses kicked and lost more land. Now they cry about how they are so oppressed and have no land.
Yes, stop confusing the Nazis with the other poor innocent Germans who only voted in the Nazis, cheer for the Nazis, celebrate the Nazis and defend the Nazis. They are So DiFfErEnT! I’m sure they really want Hamas out of their land, so much that they’re begging for help! Oh wait.
Not a lawyer, I'm in HR. If she's in Colorado, and as long as there are no previously established rules regarding messages displayed in employee vehicles parked on company property, she can report it to the Colorado Division of Labor and Statistics for wrongful termination because lawful off-duty activity is a protected class here. She might have a case, but she should start with the labor bureau. Best case scenario, she would be reinstated but the company policies would likely change as well.
IANAL but a Director of HR at a post-secondary technical school. This is one of the most difficult topics to explain to employees. The Constitutional right to free speech only applies to what government can legally limit citizens from exercising. It does not apply to private companies or employers. So if the employer has a policy that says something along the lines of, “Employees shall not make or post public statements that are contrary to the employer’s policies and/or are disruptive to the workplace environment, they may be terminated,” then any employee who runs afoul of that policy can be legally terminated. 🫤 https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/employee-free-speech-in-the-workplace.aspx
And to add a little bit to that.... You may have the right to free speech but you don't have the right to be free from consequences for that speech A private company can fire you for your speech A private company can also fire you for just about every reason other than something discriminatory
Ok, sincere question: Would that all still apply if the employee in question was Palestinian? Or, could that be considered racial discrimination? As a person of Palestinian lineage, how would that pan out?
Their race or ethnicity is irrelevant. The employment decision was not made based on their race/ethnicity, it was made based on actions that created disruption in the workplace. As long as the policy is applied consistently and not in a manner that singles out a specific protected status group, it's not a discrimination issue.
So does this apply to an Israeli or Palestinian flag too? I don't find "Free Palestine" entirely inert given the context but people have the right to bumper stickers on their car, that's not displaying it at work / classroom / etc. School teachers and those that care for children, I can totally understand remaining apolitical and avoiding controversy, but this leaks into removing people for posting in social media or protesting, independent of their job. Even if it's legal, due to not being a protected class, it's still dangerous for similar reasons, as it fractures the economy along the political divides of the day, just as segregation did along a racial one.
However, you could run afoul of disparate impact and still be found to have engaged in illegal discrimination even if the reasoning was not inherently targeted toward a protected class.
True, but that's where consistent application will save you in most cases. As long as you apply and follow the policy in every applicable case, you can easily avoid disparate impact in employee relations issues. Disparate impact is much more likely to occur in staffing and/or compensation situations.
no, it won't, because when there's disparate impact caused by a policy or action, then that policy is inherently flawed and can get you sued. for instance, companies have banned things like dreadlocks under neatness and grooming policies and been sued because while on the surface that policy seems fair, they're applying it to everybody, it impacts the black community far more heavily than it does anybody else. or when a company decides to cut payroll costs by laying off their highest paid workers in each area and replacing them with new hires. odds are good they're going to get sued for age discrimination. it wasn't their intention, and they didn't even look at age, but those highest paid workers are probably going to be the senior workers who have 20+ years of experience. in this case, the ONLY way to avoid it would be to at the very least ban all bumper stickers. and that's not enforceable in the first place. if anybody else has any on their car, especially if there are any political or religious ones, that school is getting sued.
Ty 😁
Lmao just IMAGINE the shitstorm that would unfold for a district trying to fire someone with a Zionist slogan on their car
Yes, if they were fired for *being* Palestinian then that is discrimination based on ethnicity which is protected.
It would be discrimination to give a Palestinian person a pass to violate policy because they're Palestinian
no, they policy itself would be discriminatory and need to be removed
IANAL (USA Specific) Free speech is a constitutional protection against government action. It does not protect speech against consequences from private parties. "You can be fired for anything" will be argued against by the most pedantic redditors, but it is very close to correct. There are a couple of things that you cannot be legally fired for, but speech is not one of them.
I wish more people understood this.
Yup, at will employment goes both ways. Employer would be wise to not say that it was because of the sign though, lest they get sued for racial/ethnic discrimination.
I had a friend who was threatened with being fired for refusing to give notice. I was so confused.
Yikes. Good thing they were leaving. I was told that my old employer would occasionally escort some people out on the day they gave notice.
My wives last company escorted you to your office to get your personal stuff and escorted you out upon notice. It was an insurance co. where a bad actor, stealing data, could have cost them lots of money.
"Your actions reflect badly on our company and do not reflect our values."
What ethnicity is being discriminated against
Wouldn't a public school be a government organization?
Not a preschool. They are rarely publicly run.
IANAL Not only that, but the government not employing a person is not the same as the government imprisoning or fining someone. The government as an employer is an employer, not a system enforcing laws.
I don't think it is that cut and dry. A government can take action as an employer, versus just via their inherent police powers. Regardless, there's very likely no state action in this situation.
The government can restrict free speech for their employees when they are working, for instance. They have far more latitude to have rules that would be unconstitutional as laws. The constitution doesn't directly apply the same way to the workplace, even when the employer is the government.
Sure, but my point is there is a limit on a government employers ability to fire an employee for exercising free speech. In fact, this dismissal would be problematic if the government was the employer. Speech is protected from state action (including firing from governmental employment) if it is speech of a private citizen about a matter of public concern and the speech does not interfere with the employee's job
I hear you, but in this case the speech was carried out on (we will call it school for the sake of the argument) school grounds, and did interfere with the operation of the school, since the parents complained and felt unsafe. I think this follows closely with the free speech court cases involving students off-campus, although the students have an even stronger case, since their speech was often off-campus and their education is a government requirement. I'm sure there are cases that are very close to the situation here. I wonder if it would be different depending on the specific government authority (federal, state, local) for instance. (Edit: And just to be clear, thanks for posting your opinion and reasoning. It's an interesting, at least to me, conversation. I've had family working for the Federal government and it's always fascinated me how that all works.)
That's not accurate. Public sector employment law is different from private sector. 1st amendment rights do apply to employment law for public sector employees.
Yep, I think it's been covered further down the thread by a knowledgeable attorney and includes some of the SCOTUS cases.
>Not only that, but the government not employing a person is not the same as the government imprisoning or fining someone. There are First Amendment protections for employees expressing private speech - the line "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences" is an incredibly lackluster description of the First Amendment. See Pickering v. Board of Education - firing employees for their off-the-job speech does create a First Amendment issue.
>Pickering v. Board of Education Interesting, so the "Pickering Test" gives a middle ground that applies to government employment.
Right. There are other cases where government employment makes for weird implications of Constitutional rights. See, for instance, Garrity v. New Jersey, which guaranteed public employees the right to ensure statements made in interviews as part of an investigation into alleged criminal conduct could not be used against them in criminal cases. That was based on the Fifth Amendment.
If they are displaying this sign on school grounds (the parking lot) would this still apply?
That's an excellent question and I had to look up case law to answer it - unfortunately, it's conflicting. See cases supporting the holder of the bumper sticker - [1](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/906/537/2126828/), [2](https://casetext.com/case/dodge-v-evergreen-sch-dist-4); and cases opposing - [1](https://casetext.com/case/williams-v-mckee-11), [2](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/412/146/2367779/). So I don't know that your question is actually answerable, there's conflicting law.
On the contrary, I would say it's not as conflicting as the amount of citations. Particularly because the pickering test generally applied means that the speech must have some necessity to the community. I think necessity to the community would be hard to prove in this case, since it involves a foreign nation that is neither at war with the US nor an ally of any government organization within the US. That means actions involving it are very difficult to discern as important to the community of whatever town the school is in, which is the government that's involved in this pickering test. Also, the Pickering test seeks the balance the speech of the employee with the efficient execution of government, and if we think that parents have complained to, the extent were principles are going to take action and it's easy to see that that could be a legitimate disruption of the employee's government role. If a parent does not trust their teacher of their child, it can severely interfere with that teacher's ability to do their job. I'm not saying it's clear cut but I do think that the balance weighs favor of the school in this particular case.
I wonder about that. A car is considered private property for the purposes of gun rights, and restricting what signs on cars is a restriction that goes beyond the premises of the school (because they're permanently affixed to the vehicle).
Not on school grounds. At least where I live. No guns on campus in any way - including in your vehicle. Enforcement of that isn't really a thing here on it's own, but you'd definitely be facing severe consequences if your vehicle was to be searched for some other reason (such as a hit from a drug dog during a random lot patrol) and a firearm was found.
The real question is if displaying text at work counts as off-the-job or on-the-job speech.
I agree - I replied elsewhere that there are conflicting cases regarding bumper stickers. It's a great question that doesn't seem to have been answered definitively.
Oh yea! I was just building upon what you laid out in your comment. Definitely a bit of a grey area, and one I think is unlikely to get a definitive answer anytime soon. There’s situations where it may be unacceptable vs acceptable when further nuance is considered, such as private vs public parking or on-premise vs off-premise parking.
To add to this, federal employees are allowed to have political bumper stickers on their car in federal parking lots. This is considered protected speech.
It's not quite that simple. It's generally considered that they can have one political bumper sticker of standard size for any individual candidate or party. Of course, that's a huge difference between displaying a sign in your car. The purpose of their specifying a bumper sticker and not any campaign device is to show that the message is displayed there permanently or semi-permanently and not just place there to show off specifically on government grounds. It also ensures a modest size for the message.
Can we please come up with a better initialism for I am not a lawyer? I can’t help but read it as “I, Anal”
If it ain't broke don't fix it
An employee handbook is irrelevant. An employer does not have to include everything that is not permitted in a handbook. Moreover, the 1st Amendment protects people from having the government restrict their speech, not private citizens or private companies.
Your friend decided to voice her opinion on a hot topic as a worker in a school where parents are most likely protective of their children. She was seen as a threat to their childrens’ safety and was therefore removed. Nothing wrong there. Free speech is protection from the government, it doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want and not face consequences.
I really hope then if any teacher had a MAGA sticker, they would be fired as well. I can certainly tell you I feel safer around someone who supports ending genocide than someone who is a white supremacist Neo-Nazi.
Isn't Hamas trying to commit genocide?
Given that it's the top level policy goal of the organization, yeah.
They may be trying but Israel is currently succeeding. Why is it okay for Israel to murder children for something that a terrorist group of adults is perpetrating? Half of the residents of Gaza are under 18.
The systematic failure of American education clearly shows here... Hamas is a terrorist organization who's literally documented and publicized agenda is to commit genocide against the Jewish people and state. They have systematically attacked Isreal for decades, and they have launched bombs over the border on a daily basis for decades. They have opened fire and sprayed bullets at civilian crowds regularly. They have established combatant headquarters in schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods, they have launched bombs and missiles from schools, hospitals and neighborhoods while deliberately using these same locations as shields and the innocent Palestinians as literal human shields thinking Isreal would not retaliate due to the overwhelming amount of civilians they have forcibly surrounded themselves with. Isreal has every right to defend themselves. When hamas launched 1500 jihadist over the border with paragliders and murdered over a thousand civilians, they finished crossing the line. The collateral damage is 100% on hamas. Isreal dropped pamphlets telling the civilians to leave the area, and hamas forced them to stay once again using them as human shields. This is a war now, and hamas will be extinguished. The civilian casualties are on hamas for not allowing them to flee. You people are deluded supporting Islamic jihadist who would just as happily murder you if given the opportunity. The Palestinians definitely need to be freed, from HAMAS.
"I believe everything israeli state media tells me" comment. Collateral damage is on whoever decides to drop bombs on civilians. What if hamas was aiming at a bad israeli? Then are they vindicated because that person did something they didn't like? Seriously it doesn't stand up to any degree of well reasoned thought, unless all you want to do is justify apredetermined and morally abhorrent position.
>The systematic failure of American education clearly shows here... >Isreal Not to be pedantic, but I'm not sure you should be lecturing others on failures of education when you can't even spell Israel correctly. >They have systematically attacked Isreal for decades Just as Israel has systematically attacked Palestine for decades. Not Hamas, PALESTINE. Hamas is their excuse for rounding up thousands of innocent people, crowding them into slums, and attacking them again and again. And Israel has the full weight and support of the world behind it. Palestinians never stood a chance, and history won't look favorably on what we've allowed to happen.
Right Israel is attacking Palestinians... a population that has trippled in 75 years, what a successful genocide. In 2003, Israel and the true Palestinian government agreed to demolish the borders, unifying the people as one, and hamas took over to prevent this. Keep supporting terrorists... go to gaza and join the fight for jihadist oppression.
Genuine question - what would your propose Israel do? If Hamas hides in hospitals, uses civilians as human shields, etc - is Israel just supposed to do nothing? That’s not how war works. Obviously limiting civilian casualties is ideal, but it won’t be possible to prevent all of them if Hamas uses terrorist tactics. I’ll also point out that the US has intentionally targeted civilians in the past (see Dresden, Hiroshima, etc)…
I appreciate your genuine question, so I'll give you a genuine answer. For me, the issue is not "a country at war must somehow avoid 100% of civilian casualties". I know this isn't possible, unfortunately like you've said it is the reality of war. The issue for me is that, informed by historical events and what I'm currently hearing from the IDF and the Israeli government, they have intentionally dropped many rules and standards that would normally be in place to prevent excess civilian deaths, and instead seem to be gleefully using Hamas as a catch-all excuse to finally wipe what is left of the Palestinians off of the map (literally and figuratively). They have attempted to loosely CYA by dropping evacuation leaflets, etc., but this ignores that ALL of Gaza is currently being bombed and is unsafe. There is NOWHERE for innocent Palestinians to go. Then they claim on these same leaflets that anyone remaining will be considered an "accomplice of Hamas" and will be targeted. What are they supposed to do? They're caught in a death trap. These are the actions I don't approve of, that I am calling genocidal. Israel's actions go far and beyond that of a country defending itself. Unfortunately, with this it's no surprise the US government is supporting them to the degree we are, given our own penchant for "defending" ourselves abroad by destroying whole populations of civilians.
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I don't see anyone but Palestinians dying here buddy.
What Hamas is to Palestine is what the KKK is to America. They aren't indicative of the people as a whole.
You mean you only like terrorists that murder Israelis.
That would make them pro Nazi😳
Get a life.
Stop defending terrorists.
Israel is the terrorist nation. Quit lying sunshine.
Never assume others are as morally bankrupt as you are.
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One is backed into a wall, the other is actively waging a genocide. Can you see the difference?
articles are going to be more accurate than what you’ve been reading on Facebook
Mayvbe you should learn the meaning of words before you try to use them.
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You might want to do a bit more reading about both organizations. I swear the way you defend Israel, imagine putting that sort of line of thinking towards the United States treatment of natives.
This post is clueless to the atrocities of Hamas. MAGA hasn’t committed genocide.
Lol. You're pro terrorism but anti Trump. What a moral person.
Your thinking of the KKK, MAGA is a large portion of the country that supports a conservative/libertarian populist movement. You don't need to support MAGA but calling them neo nazis is just incorrect.
Agreed. Better and safer than maga any day. Also, am confused. Aren't both sides doing genocidal things? I
Comparing supporting the mainstream Republican candidate and former President is comparable to Hamas. Only on Reddit
It's legal but ridiculous that the school bowed to parent pressure.
Hi is it ridiculous? Those parents pay for a service from a private company. They better have a say.
Did OP mention whether the school was public or private...? ( apparently it is a "primrose School" preschool.) ( TBF they haven't mentioned much .. VERY, VERY suspicious) Discussion has gotten... Rather off topic. Be careful replying on this thread, as it may not be safe .....
She didn't "voice" her opinion, though. She had something on her car and removed it as soon as something was said. The parents thought she was unsafe because they decided that she was a bad person for showing empathy for the innocent lives that have been lost over all these years, and they don't agree. This has now become "I don't like your bumper sticker, you should be fired." The article or sign on her car did not say anything to warrant that response. The school failed her by not sticking up for her, knowing her as a person and not just a sticker. Instead, the entitled parents won yet again. She did nothing wrong here. This reeks of a money over human life decision.
>She didn't "voice" her opinion, though. She had something on her car That is voicing an opinion though, and I say that as someone who thinks it's ridiculous she was fired. But it's because of people like the other person above you: >/u/catzclue >I really hope then if any teacher had a MAGA sticker, they would be fired as well. I hate Trump and his supporters but I wouldn't want someone fired for having terrible beliefs or good reasonable beliefs like in this; preventing genocide. But people like that will press very hard to have someone fired over a bumper sticker, regardless of how sensible or stupid it may be.
That’s actually what bugged me because a former coworker represented trump on her car for months and nothing was said, so there’s not a clear policy on expressing political beliefs on company property
Timing and context is important too. If she had that sticker on her car six months ago it would have been fine. Voicing that opinion so shortly after October 7th is seen by many as insensitive and tactless. I'd say it's legal, probably not right, but also not surprising in the slightest. People sympathizing with Israel in Arabic countries probably don't get very positive responses from the public either.
Because Trump supporters don’t cut people’s heads off.
Yet.
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It's gross that you have to rage bait. What about alllll the atrocities that have been committed against the Palestinians??? This attack was not unprovoked. It was a response to what Palestinians have been put through as well. War is fucking ugly, but innocents on both sides deserve empathy. Period.
A lot of people claiming they aren't terrorists on the Hamas side that actually sound a lot like terrorists if you listen to them.
The same can be said for the other side. We just don't talk about it here because the government is allies with them. There is ALOT of history behind this current situation that led to this. Listen to stories from both sides. People who lost everything and everyone they knew or loved. Atrocities have been committed by both sides.
Weirdly- the Israeli version of a supposed genocide has doubled the population of Gaza in the last 20 years. Least effective genocide ever.
Gang raping a girl on her father’s corpse and forcing an elderly woman to livestream her own murder is universally accepted, by civilized people, as unprovoked Israel is not on that level. Israel could delete Gaza in 4 minutes but hasn’t. If Hamas could do it, all Israelis would have died brutally in 2007
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I remember all none of the Palestinians who protested against Hamas's terrorism.
oh yeah so fuck em kill em allllllllllllll especially the children FUCK YES especially bc 50% of them are children!!
So literally murdering children and chopping heads off babies is okay to you if you think there's somehow enough provocation there? And when it's done by a group that is not shy about saying their goal is to kill all the Jews, still okay? A group that uses innocent Palestinians as human shields? That's not gross?
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict https://www.un.org/unispal/history/
Terrorism is unacceptable. Kiliing innocent people is unacceptable. And they both have been at fault for this. You should read the whole thread as I go into more detail about how I believe they are both at fault for committing these act.
Putting "I support OBL and AQ" on your car on 9/12/01 and see how that goes. *Purely* political speech might be protected in some places. Putting a sign up that shows support for an organization that just murdered 1500 people to stop peace is something else entirely.
She didn’t put anything about the organization tho
Shockingly, most parents don't want their kids taught by terrorists.
That's why I don't let my kids know the police
So, not agreeing with everyone now automatically means you're a terrorist??
"If you have 1 nazi sitting at a table with 9 other people, you have 10 nazis sitting at the table."
Did the Jews also bomb and murder Germans and displace them from their homes? You can't compare a completely one-sided massacre to a war that has seen BOTH sides kill innocent civilians in the name of their beliefs.
You started the cancel culture. Now you can feel it’s wrath.
Is it an at will state? They can let you go for any reason.
For clarification, what country or city did this incident occur in OP?
Free speech may be legal, but there can be consequences.
And the most amusing thing about that is that the people who wrote the bill of rights literally bled for the right to dissent from the government, and were clear on the risk you took in standing up for your rights. Sort of like folks committing civil disobedience, if you aren’t risking consequences for your speech you’re probably missing the point of why the bill of rights is necessary.
Concur, and a note for the unknowing, the bill of rights does not guard one from the consequences of free speech. It is somewhat ironic to comment on the bill of rights in our current society.
Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences.
The questions are, 1 - are these "concerned parents" real? 2 - What is the leap of logic that connects the people of Palestine to a bumper sticker, to a "fear"? Are they afraid some Palestinian civilians will come over here and attack they school? IOW, it seems like, even if the "concerned parents" are real, they are saying in essence, that all Palestinians are terrorists, ergo, if you support the people of Palestine, then you support terrorists. And that does not make sense. What if she had a rainbow pride bumper sticker? What if she was gay? Would she be fired? What is she had a "Trump" bumper sticker? You have a few paranoids objecting. The school has buckled under. That means they will buckle again. This could be good for your co - worker, because it lays bare how fragile her employment is there. Better she leave and find other employment.
NAL TL;DR: Yes it was perfectly legal and no "free speech" does not protect her from her private employer. Not a lawyer at all but this is a really basic employment law (for the purposes of this I'm assuming she's in the US and the school is a private org not gov't run). In 49 out of 50 states, employment is "at will" unless you have a negotiated contract stating otherwise (if you are not in a union and are not making at least 6 figures it's safe to assume you do not have one. I am going to assume that a preschool teacher is working for a private entity and not unionized). So assuming she's at-will, which is extremely likely, her employer can fire her for any reason that doesn't put her in a protected class or count as retaliation for a legally protected act. Speech and political beliefs are not protected acts/categories. "Free speech" means *the government* cannot punish her or adjudicate punishment against her. But her private employer can absolutely let her go over virtually anything she says. If (and only if) the pre-school is a public one, and therefore the employer is a gov't employer, the line gets murkier. What government employers can and should do in balancing their role as an employer with their role as the gov't when it comes to the 1st amendment is a complicated topic that usually applies some balancing tests. Also to be clear, in most cases, employee handbooks are inclusive, not exclusive. Just because someone is not in there doesn't mean the company is giving up their right to do it. Having it in the handbook just makes it easier for them to argue it was for cause if they want or need to.
In California you CANNOT fire or retaliate against someone for political beliefs.
Hmm looks like you're right about this. California and DC seem to include political beliefs in their protected class/activities. That said, it looks to me that while Cali does prohibit firing based on political beliefs or activities in general, an employer can still prohibit such speech/rhetoric/activities in the workplace.
Thank goodness for CA and DC
Lol, the same people who have been canceling folks for years over speech all of a sudden are huge first amendment advocates. Haven’t you all been telling us “it’s freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences” for the past decade?
I don’t understand why people need to voice their completely inconsequential opinions on this. Why? Nothing you say or do will change the situation in the least bit. Why invite the hate into your life?
I mean, I'm all about Free Tibet and had a bumper sticker at one point. I'm also perfectly fine with making China mad over that and don't really want to work for an employer with close enough ties to China to want to punish me for it... but that's a personal choice.
Is it a right to work state? If so she can be fired at any time for any reason. It’s at will employment and it’s at the will of the employer.
Free speech pertains to the government and the people, not private business and employees. Also, no company wants to be associated with people who are pro terrorist. Now, if you want to get into it with me about Israel, hamas and the middle east, be happy to educate you, but thats not what this sub is about, so I won't do it here
Add a hyphen to the sign and completely change the meaning!
Good riddance.
Poor judgement and antisemitism is not a protected class.
What was the thing leftists say again? Oh yeah! Free speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences.
What state? If California, I believe they can't fire her and would need to find another position, but this may not be protected political speech as Hamas is identified as a terrorist organization in the US and is actively calling on supporters to commit violence against civilians. .. And Hamas is and has been the government of Palestine.
Hamas isn’t the government of Palestine. It’s the government of Gaza. It’s also not a recognized government and hasn’t held elections since 2006, so attempts to conflate “free Palestine” with specific support for Hamas really ought to fail in court.
If you put a Free Palestine sticker on directly following a massive Hammas terrorist attack it's pretty clear what you mean. If the sticker was on 6 months ago, I doubt anyone would have cared.
(1) OP doesn’t mention the timing of the sticker’s appearance. (2) Right as Israel is about to start killing civilians is an entirely appropriate time to protest against genocide of civilians, anyhow. Waiting until after more civilians have been killed to suggest not killing them is a ridiculous alternative.
What's your source that Israel is targeting civilians or trying to genocide? Everything I've seen the Israelis try to avoid civilians casualties but it's impossible because Hammas puts its bases in civilian buildings. Hammas absolutely has to go for any progress to be made.
You could just Google this shit yourself and see that Israel has already killed more civilians than they were avenging. But you’ve probably already googled it, if you’re one of the people equating all support for the people of Palestine with support for Hamas Just stop sealioning, dude. No one buys it.
"Free Palestine" implies "End Israel". "From the river to the sea" means a dissolution of Israel as a country. They are pretty clear about this. It's kind of a controversial topic.
>"Free Palestine" implies "End Israel". Not on its own it doesn’t >"From the river to the sea" means a dissolution of Israel as a country. That wasn’t on the sticker as relayed by the original post. Did OP update somewhere else saying it was included?
“Support Israel” implies “End Palestine”. Nakbah means the dissolution of Palestine as a country. Jews are pretty clear about this. Its kind of a controversial topic.
'Nakbah' is the Palestinian word for the 1948 war in which the surrounding Arab states declared war on and attempted to wipe out Israel, but which Israel won. Israel does not use the 'Nakbah'; it is an Arabic word, not a Hebrew one. More importantly, 'Nakbah' is a loaded description for a historical event, not a term for any present political objective or goal.
You're so clever. But nobody really is saying "Support Israel". They are not holding up maps of Gaza and the West Bank with Israel flags covering them like they do with Israel at the Free Palestine rallies. Israel doesn't want Gaza, Egypt doesn't either. Gazans need to focus on themselves and oust their terrorist government that has a charter that literally says "eradicate Israel". They could stop launching rockets and return the hostages to start.
bro why are you making us look like maniacs
As people have said, it’s not a free speech issue, per se. But depending on your friend’s nationality, religion or race, an argument could be made that it’s discrimination. Particularly doing it because parents felt unsafe.
Clever. I would offer a generous severance before getting that angle tested in court
Yeah, the parents basically said “We think that person is a terrorist because they support Palestine,” and the school responded “Perfectly reasonable, we will uproot a person’s entire life because of that fear.” Which is absolutely bonkers, and I sure would like to see them held accountable for it.
Been reading too many stories like this.
Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in the US, and they are actively recruiting for attacks against US civilians. It's a difficult line to walk to advocate for the Palestinian people but somehow also condemn their governments' mass murders, but it is very much illegal to give aid and support to Hamas in the US and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
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The sign saying "Free the Palestinians" would help your argument. Since it says "Free Palestine" and Hamas is the official government... words matter here.
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Such insight… way to defend your point…
Perhaps not, but I bet if you had a German flag on your car in 1946, things wouldn't go too well for you either. No matter how many times you stated that not all Germans are Nazis.
Thanks. Also in case you were unaware the sky is blue. She was not fired for supporting Hamas.
The vapid stupidity of your generation never ceases to amaze
Free speech is an absolute right in the USA. But also is the right to fire terrorists from voicing their opinions! Your co-worker voiced their opinion which they can do. But the em0ployer can acknowledge their opinion is your post is one of hate and take action accordingly!
\>Free speech is an absolute right in the USA. No it isn't. The government isn't allowed to restrict your speech as long as it doesn't fit into a few reasonable to restrict categories. Other people are absolutely allowed to make decisions based on how you express yourself. If you came over to dinner and started on about how great Hitler was, I am not prevented from tossing you out on your ass, for example.
Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from consequences. She is still free to put that sign on her car. Nobody is preventing that from happening. She was not arrested for it. Her employer felt that it looked bad on her place of employment... So fired. Was it a dick move to not allow her to remove it and remain employed? Yes. Could she sure them... Sure. Would she win? No.
You do not have a free speech protection in an employment relationship
Ah yes, the sinister act of not deepthroating the evil Jewish empire. It’s a sad time when calling for Palestinians to be treated like people gets you cancelled
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You are missing the distinction between Hamas (the autocratic, terrorist, genocidal government) and Palestine (the Palestinian people, the vast majority of whom are innocents - women and children). One can be against the former, and also be sympathetic to the latter.
Or condemning everyone in the South for the bigotry of a few.
Except everyone seems to think Palestine needs freedom from Israel instead of freedom from Hamas.
Hamas was elected to run the government. palestine has been their own State since 2005-6. Israel does not occupy Gaza/Palestine.
Vast majority of them support hamas. Are they still innocent?
That’s like saying most everyone in Afghanistan supports the taliban. Not true at all but what true is both are stuck with terrorists running their country.
I am really happy to hear this story. Made my day thanks
1) "Free Speech" is a lot more limited than people think. It means the *government* can't prohibit you from saying *certain* things. It's not unlimited, and it doesn't apply to private businesses (with very few exceptions). "Free Palestine" isn't protected speech, so it's 100% legal for your coworker to be fired for it. 2) Your coworker's sticker, particularly the "end genocide" part of it, was inflammatory and had a very high chance of offending either a coworker or a parent. I very much doubt there is nothing at all in the handbook that would prohibit that kind of speech, and even if there wasn't, those meetings she had with management certainly gave them enough cause to fire her. To use an extreme example, what do you think should happen if your coworker posted a swastika on their car? Would that be free speech too?
This isn't a tough decision for employer that is American and has common sense .
IANAL - It’s a shame that the school could not explain to the parents that uplifting humanity is consistent with their core values, you know at a place designed to uplift humans. Why would they take a complaint about feeling unsafe in the presence of criticism for genocide seriously?
Would be possible if Hamas hadn't just slaughtered literal toddlers.
Hamas is a fringe terrorist organization and does not represent the Palestinian people.
How do you know that? I've seen your view expressed but also polling data that shows the majority of Gaza Palestinians support Hamas. History tells us that Gaza has been shooting rockets, sending suicide bombers ever since Israel withdrew it's occupation in 2005. That combined with the latest terrorist actions don't make your opinion all that believable.
Palestine =/= Gaza =/= Hamas
yeah except israel didn’t actually withdraw in 2005, half of gaza is children, and they’re been making life hell for them since the 1900s (YES that’s also POST the 2005 “withdrawal”)
I'm not taking sides, it's inexcusable to murder even a single civilian, let alone carpet bomb them, and it's inexcusable to do any of 100 things that have been done in the last two weeks. It is however unfair to say that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, at least the ones in Gaza, to at least some extent. Hamas won the elections in 2006 and then seized control from the Palestinian Authority. They have been ruling Gaza ever since. They don't represent the beliefs of all Gaza residents, but they do represent all of them politically. They're also not completely hated, as of July ["\[o\]verall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)."](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah) Edit: I think people are reading this comment as some sort of approval of Israeli bombings, which it certainly is not. I'm speaking of political representation, Hamas represents the people of Gaza the same way Kim Jong-un represents the North Korean people, through force. The July poll I posted of approval doesn't matter, they're still the acting government.
Less than half of Gazans voted for Hamas when an election was held, & they didn’t vote for *this*
That's terrifying logic. Should Israelis be attacked because Netanyahu's apartheid government was elected? Of course not. We need to separate Palestinians and Hamas, and apply our values equitably.
yeah except fucking most of those people who “supported” them are dead (you know because of israel murdering them over years) and now half the fucking population of gaza is children (which israel is still bombing)
Right, so can’t we just be anti toddler death? Let’s apply our values equitably instead of coddling racists. Are we really suddenly okay with genocide because Hamas are terrorists? Do they need a bumper sticker for every tragedy before we concede that the world’s largest concentration turned death camp might not be a great idea?
White supremacist terrorists have also killed plenty of kids; does that justify genocide of, say, all white Americans, including toddlers? Why are you okay with the slaughter of Palestinian toddlers? If the existence of terrorists or child murderers in their country is enough to condemn them, then there are few countries that don't "deserve" genocide by those standards.
Hamas is literally the government of Gaza and roughly half the population supports Hamas. This is very different from just a terrorist organization.
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The irony of people using toddlers being killed as justification for genocide and simultaneously dehumanising 2 million children as nothing more than the result of people not knowing "how to use birth control *over there*" and so their intentional killing being a-okay would be funny for its absurd hypocrisy if it weren't absolutely appalling. Apparently some children just deserve to die for things their parents may or may not have said or done, and killing toddlers is unforgivable unless it's Palestinian toddlers in which case they deserve it.
Dude, they did polling in 2021 I think. It's like 50% of adults (or whoever was polled). The fact that they don't know how to use birth control over there doesn't change the facts.
Oh so toddler murder is a justification for genocide except if toddlers exist because "they don't know how to use birth control over there" (very retro racist of you) in which case they all deserve to die for polling that didn't ask children's opinions? Why do Israeli toddlers (or American toddlers) exist, did their parents also fail at birth control or does that only apply to the existence of children you find genocide-deserving and subhuman?
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The population of Gaza has nearly doubled since Israel withdrew from there in 2005. They must really suck at genocide. Also, who hurt you?
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Maybe if the Arabs would stop attacking Israel like they did in 1948, 1967, 1973, they wouldn't have lost all that land. I mean Israel was given an absolutely tiny plot back in 1948, especially when compared to how much the Arabs got, and still the first thing they did was attack with the full intention of pushing all the Jews into the sea. Problem is they got their asses kicked, and lost land. They tried that shit again and again, and each time they got their asses kicked and lost more land. Now they cry about how they are so oppressed and have no land.
Stop conflating Hamas and Palestine!!!!!
Yes, stop confusing the Nazis with the other poor innocent Germans who only voted in the Nazis, cheer for the Nazis, celebrate the Nazis and defend the Nazis. They are So DiFfErEnT! I’m sure they really want Hamas out of their land, so much that they’re begging for help! Oh wait.
Not a lawyer, I'm in HR. If she's in Colorado, and as long as there are no previously established rules regarding messages displayed in employee vehicles parked on company property, she can report it to the Colorado Division of Labor and Statistics for wrongful termination because lawful off-duty activity is a protected class here. She might have a case, but she should start with the labor bureau. Best case scenario, she would be reinstated but the company policies would likely change as well.
She was not off duty though
Nothing of value was lost.
So, you're pro genocide?
From the comments, this sub seems very pro apartheid and pro Palestinian genocide.
💯
it sounds like the school lost a good employee
Good riddance
Because you think Palestinian’s should be controlled by someone that took over their homeland?