Question

Review the article- First Amendment in the Workplace: Can Employees Really Say Anything They Want?

Summarize the main points then discuss:

a) Do you believe that the First Amendment protects online speech, even if that speech is perceived by individuals as offensive?
b)Do employees have the right to free speech in the workplace? What about speech made outside of work, even if such speech is hateful and offensive?
c) What have you learned about the scope and nature of the free speech clause?

Answer 1

Can Employees Really Say Anything They Want?

1.No ,it is not true.Though the answer depends on whether the employer is a public or private entity, the type of speech involved, and the employee’s position.Employees who work in the private-sector do not, as a rule, have First Amendment protection for their speech in the workplace.

a) Do you believe that the First Amendment protects online speech, even if that speech is perceived by individuals as offensive?

The First Amendment applies online, just as it does in regular written, personal, religious, and political discourse. But one of the key limitations of the internet lies less in what we can say, but where we choose to say it.  we engage each other through the internet primarily via private websites, not public ones, so the First Amendment, to no small degree, is far from a protected “free speech zone”. & there’s no exception for hate speech under the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of expression, unless the speech is direct, personal, and either truly threatening or violently provocative.

b)Do employees have the right to free speech in the workplace? What about speech made outside of work, even if such speech is hateful and offensive?

b.If your employer is a private entity, the First Amendment offers you no protection from being fired on account of what you say.public employees do have protection from retaliation for exercising certain First Amendment rights. It only protects you from government actions.A police officer can’t arrest you because you wore a hat supporting a particular political candidate. But your boss could fire you for the very same reason.Employees working for the federal government enjoy broader free speech protections than if they worked for a private employer. But there are still limitations to what the employee can get away with saying or doing.

99.9 percent of the time, there is no legal barrier to a private employer firing an employee because of their speech at or outside of the workplace

c) What have you learned about the scope and nature of the free speech clause?

• The five freedoms it protects: speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government. Together, these five guaranteed freedoms make the people of the United States of America the freest in the world.
• The First Amendment protects us against government limits on our freedom of expression, but it doesn’t prevent a private employer from setting its own rules.
• It does not give you speech of free doom everywhere & on every situation,speech of free doom is limited .