There is a rather large uproar lately about the infamous "Google memo" and its author's termination from Google for the contents thereof.
The snafu started with a Google engineer drafting a memo (disclosure: I haven't read the memo in its entirety; only parts of it) that theorizes that natural differences in men and women explain the paucity of female tech workers.
The utterly predictable, viral response to this memo was that it is res ispa loquitor (the thing speaks for itself) evidence of the "sick culture" of Silicon Valley. In response to the viral response, presumably, Google fired the guy who drafted the memo. Thereafter, certain elements of our society were predictably outraged at this engineer's firing, claiming that his 1st Amendment rights were violated, or something like that.
Once again, Google provides an example and answer to a commonly held misbelief. Neither you nor I have 1st Amendment rights with respect to our employers.
That's right.
Your employer can fire you for your views, political or otherwise. If your employer wants to only hire people whose favorite color is red, s/he can fire you if your favorite color is blue.
If your employer only wants to employ Republicans (or Democrats), s/he can fire you for voting Democratic (or Republican, as the case may be).
Do I like this state of affairs? No, not particularly. Nonetheless, the world is what it is, not necessarily what I want it to be.
Thus concludes our talk of one (miniscule) area of constitutional law.
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