Recently, my colleague Julie Fay and I penned an article for the National Business Officers Association (which represents independent schools) for their national publication “Net Assets Now”. We focused on how schools can address free speech in the context of independent schools.
In the current political climate, independent schools face complex questions about free speech
I’ve tried to write this post for over a week now. I should say something about the attack on Israel, right?
Yes, of course. It’s a horrific attack. 1300 men, women and children murdered. Hostages taken. Beyond words and comprehension. The pain of their loss is our loss, which many of us feel personally. No
Last week, I had the opportunity to present to the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools, an accrediting agency serving over 90 schools and 30,000 students here in state.
The topic was one that doesn’t get enough attention at times and due to its applicability not to just to schools, but to all employers (public
With union organizing efforts making headlines at Amazon and Starbucks, a new bill in Connecticut is designed to make it even easier for unions to win organizing votes.
A bill banning so-called “captive audience” meetings won final approval from the Connecticut General Assembly late Friday; it moves to the Governor’s office where his approval
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot in the media say that the First Amendment doesn’t apply outside the government.
In Connecticut, that’s just not true — particularly when it comes to the private workplace.
As I’ve written about before, employees do have certain free speech rights that have been codified in state law. Conn.
Can you “Say Anything” in the workplace?
Last month, a Silicon Valley CEO told employees that its mission doesn’t include taking stands on political issues outside the financial realm.
As a result, and as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, “employees were told that internal debates about politics and activism not related to
With Independence Day nearly upon us (and with many offices on skeleton crews this week), I thought I would take a very brief look back at a case that has particular relevance to the Grand Old Flag and displays of patriotism in the workplace.
If you’ve never read about Cotto v. United Technologies Corp.,
The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity (CHRO) was sued yesterday by its longtime (and former) Regional Manager Pekah Wallace. The federal lawsuit claims her employment termination was improper and provides a whole host of information about what has been going on behind the scenes at the agency.
“Joe, in response to all this NFL stuff, we want you to display U.S. flags at your workstation.”
“No.”
“Well, then you’re fired.”
Don’t think that can happen? Then you haven’t heard about the Cotto v. United Technologies Corp. case — a long-forgotten Connecticut Supreme Court case from 20 years ago that has particular
“President Trump is a Big Fat Idiot” or, for that matter, “Secretary Clinton is a Sore Loser.”
Let’s suppose you see one of your employees tweeting one of these expressions on Twitter during non-work hours from a personal account.
Can you discipline or even fire your employee over that tweet?
That, in essence, is at the heart of an issue that has been circulating in the sports pages (and in the President’s press briefings) over the last week due to the tweets of ESPN Sportscenter Anchor Jemele Hill from her personal account that were critical of the President.
The New York Times, in fact, ran a story on Saturday discussing the legal ramifications; it was nice to be quoted in the article.
While that article does a good job of summarizing the law in part, there’s a bit more to the story that is useful exploring (however briefly) in a blog post.
First off, people do not generally have a First Amendment protection for things that that they say that their employer finds out about.
Say you go to a white supremacist rally in, oh, Charlottesville and your employer finds out about your speech at the rally. You can be fired because of that generally.
But but but.
A state like Connecticut has a law that says that gives employee a right to sue their employer if the employer disciplines or fires the employee because of that employee exercised their free speech rights under both the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, AND the Connecticut Constitution.
Importantly, the speech has to be of a matter of “public concern” and courts will look to see if the person is speaking in his or her capacity as a concerned citizen; criticisms of your own personal workplace will often times not satisfy this standard.
Political speech is almost always the type of speech that courts will consider of a “public concern”.
The Connecticut Supreme Court said in 1999 (not 2015 as The New York Times indicated) in Cotto v. United Tech. Corp. that Connecticut’s free speech statute applied to speech made at an employer’s premises.Continue Reading Calling President An Idiot May Be Protected Speech (But Maybe Not)