Talk about your mixed messages.
Trying to equate this employer/employee relationship to a government/citizen relationship is simply so wrong I don’t have the ability to even start to address it.
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If the complaint about Kathleen Stock was that she wasn’t teaching the curriculum of her course then you’d be approaching a similar situation.
The people who wanted her fired were upset at things she was saying and doing outside the classroom such as her opposition to the Gender Recognition Act and other comments made in an interview with The Argus (a local newspaper) in 2018.
Setting a public school curriculum is a proper role of government, although reasonable people can disagree about
A) What the curriculum should be and
B) Which level(s) of government should have a say
Firing a government employee over something they said in a newspaper article is light-years from setting a curriculum in a public school classroom.
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A lot of them do, yes. Free speech is getting attacked on all sides, no question.
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I think it’s helpful to distinguish three contexts:
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the professor publishes something: tenure should protect the professor. this is exactly what tenure is supposed to do. in my mind, we should give professors maximum reasonable freedom here.
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student relations not related to teaching material: for example, a professor refuses to use a student’s preferred pronouns, or sexually harasses a student. this has little or nothing to do with free speech on my opinion. the professor should err on compassion and respect for the student.
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student relations related to teaching materiel: i think this is the trickiest. student education, not professorial ego, should of course come first. we need safety for students and professors to be able to address challenging or sensitive topics at times.
This is extremely tortured logic.
If a police officer is quoted in the newspaper or in an interview making racist comments along the line of “All n— should die” he can’t be fired because he is employed by the government and therefore “the government” would be violating his right to free speech?
That’s probably borderline inciting violence.
More generally, a police officer’s right to free speech is an interesting and tricky subject. My understanding is that most departments have rules about what their officers can say publicly (on social media or certainly to a newspaper) and I think it’s a very fine line between where their duty to protect ends and their right to free speech starts. I’m probably not the most qualified to speak to that in depth though.
I know there’s been cases of police officers fired or suspended over racist/sexist/homophobic statements posted on social media or in at least one case to a newspaper. In some cases (but definitely not all) they end up getting reinstated with back pay.
Like I said, it’s a very fine line. I think university professors should (and do) have more leeway than police officers.
Which is the reasonable part? The whole thing is completely baseless performative outrage to rile up their voters.
I don’t think it’s a fine line at all. I think a police officer who says, “all those dirty _____s should die” should be fired as soon as the facts are verified.
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. . . has demonstrated an intentional disregard for the core service they’ve agreed to: to protect and serve.
Doesn’t have to be about “free speech” . . . but indications around dereliction of duty.
Well, it’s both.
Free speech intersects with a lot of stuff in life, that’s why it’s complicated.
Free speech does not equate to freedom from consequences.
You may be free to say “X”, but if “X” would raise questions about your ability and willingness to fairly perform your job in the mind of a hypothetical objective outsider, it’s entirely appropriate for your employer to question whether they should be employing you.
That your employer might be the government is moot to this particular point.
(In the case of the educator that’s been mentioned, I’ll mention here again that I think the concept of “public universities” is different in the UK than in the US. I wouldn’t be at all certain that an employee of a British public university should be viewed as employed by “the government”.)
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Yeah, that’s indicative of his inability to do his job. I don’t think that’s in a gray area.
There’s a whole thread about it. I posted an article and cited examples. One was a teacher having young elementary students (I forget how old) line up in order of their privilege, which I don’t think is in any way appropriate.
Your primary argument that I am questioning regarding Kathleen Stockton is that the employer is The Government and therefore it is The Government restricting free speech rights resulting in Government Consequences, which makes it different than an employer/employee relationship and the employer reacting. Please explain why a public employer is The Government, and the employer/employee relationship is not relevant, in the instance where you disagree with the consequences, but it suddenly becomes an employer/employee relationship, and not The Government, in the situation where you agree with the consequences?
While I am not an expert on UK law, there is plenty of case law in the US that a government employer is “government”. Possibly her legal rights in the UK differ from what they would be in the US.
Also, it’s Kathleen Stock, not Stockton.
To the OP, I live in a red state that is trying to fine teachers 1/3 of their annual pay for saying the wrong thing in a classroom.
Who’s against free speech?
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Politicians, it seems, regardless of whether they are “right” or “left”.
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Huh? I’m not following. I’m pretty sure I never said it was an employer/employee relationship if I agree with the consequences.
If a government employee says or does something that interferes with their ability to do their job that’s in a different category from expressing an unpopular opinion.
For example, if an astronomy professor posted on Facebook a long rant that the earth is actually flat, that interferes with his ability to do his job. If the same professor posted that interracial marriage is a sin (a position I demonstrably disagree with), that does NOT interfere with his ability to do his job and his right to free speech applies.
However, if that professor posted “interracial marriage is a sin” (a position I also vehemently disagree with) from a work address, or while identifying as associated with their employer, that could raise other issues that might justifiably jeopardize their employment, even if they are employed by “the government”, without really running afoul of “free speech”.