After the Reagan assassination attempt, a clerical employee in a Sheriff’s office in Texas said out loud, within earshot of hear colleagues,
“The next time they go for him, I hope they get him.”
She was fired by the Sheriff.
She sued. The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court considered the issue of free speech made by government employees on matters of public interest, and the competing issue of government managers requiring reasonable controls over a reasonably well-behaved subordinate workforce.
She won. (Rightly so, imo.)
Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987)
Also... The federal Merit Systems Protections Board has sided both for and against federal employees who have made controversial public statements on matters of public concern, and has, more or less, to the extent I adequately examined the case history a while back, sided with the employee as long as the statement of the employee was not too disruptive of the office environment and managerial control.
I’d say the state employee who joked about Michelle Obama online has a case against her state employer.
In reviewing the case the court also held that was a private comment.
thanks for posting this
THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS...
Yep, especially because the statement wasn’t made in the work environment at all. This firing of people for something they said on their own time, and not as representatives of the employer, is insanity. It might be reasonable for some public representative of a company, who is representing the company’s “brand” 24/7, but not for run-of-the-mill employees.