Although the article does not mention it, someone is likely to comment that the womanās First Amendment rights were breached. Nope. The Amendment operates only against government agencies, and the employer here was a private business, even if it did have one or more government contracts. It may have been foolish, or intolerant, or bigoted, but it had a perfect right to dismiss the woman from her job.
And maybe she can get a place with a more congenial employer.
Also, she wasnāt fired for being in the photo. She was fired for then using that photo as her Facebook profile picture. This is an important detail.
A cyclist who went viral after giving President Donald Trumpās motorcade the finger was fired for posting a picture of the gesture to social media, she told several outlets.
āIād do it again,ā Juli Briskman, 50, told Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak in a post published Monday.
Good on you for standing up for your principles (and your finger) MS Briskman!! The article makes no mention of your job skills but certainly youāll find a new career with a different employer.
A colleague, she noted to both publications, had faced minimal consequences for comparable social media obscenity: He called someone āa fucking Libtard assholeā on Facebook, but kept his job
Iād be very much at peace parting ways with a company that allows this but has a problem with another person expressing their displeasure with the current occupantā¦
Hereās hoping for a new and better job for Briskman. If I had a business, Iād hire her in a heartbeat.
I hope she gets a flood of offers of well paying jobs.
Iām sure GoFundMe would be kind to her, should she decide to go that route. Hell, Iād kick in a few bucks.
Sounds like they were within their rights to fire her for this. I still support her hand gesture fully.
A colleague, she noted to both publications, had faced minimal consequences for comparable social media obscenity: He called someone āa fucking Libtard assholeā on Facebook, but kept his job.
IOKIYARWe once had a Vice President who flipped the bird at a heckler.
https://iconicphotos.org/2009/10/29/rockefeller-gives-middle-finger/amp/
True ā but I believe the Supremeās have ruled that the middle finger salute isnāt obscene, so thereās some room for recourse.
He called someone āa fucking Libtard assholeā on Facebook, but kept his job.
We could play the sexist angle because he kept his job while she got fired but Iāll go with the free market explanation. The employer is a government contractor and right now the liberal fucking assholes donāt play a role in awarding government contracts. The comment from the male employee probably gives the company a competitive advantage.
Akimaās website is down. Hmmmmm.
So they were calling flipping him off āobscene.ā
Obscenity is relative and given the most obscene thing on the planet, Donald Trump, was also in the photo, the only āobsceneā thing she could have done was to be polite to him.
Iām not a lawyer, but Iām wondering if she might have a case based on the companyās unequal treatment of its employees based on the political content of their social media content. They fired her for āobscenityā for flipping the bird, but didnāt fire another employee for calling someone a āfucking Libtard asshole?ā
I get that private employers have broad latitude to fire āat-willā employees for almost any reason. But Iām pretty sure employers in general (and Iām very sure federal contractors) are not allowed to discriminate based on ārace, creed or colorā (as well as some other categories).
Perhaps one of our resident legal eagles can clarify for me ā does ācreedā refer only to religion, or can it also refer to political beliefs?
And, more broadly does she have any kind of legitimate legal claimā¦on this basis or any other? Just curious.
āSo my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am,ā Trump remarked. āBut I never ran, so I wasnāt very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.ā
Wrong approach.
BOSS: Is that you?
ME: I donāt think so. Can you see the personās face?
BOSS: No.
ME: Then itās not me.
BOSS: Are you sure?
ME: Are YOU sure? If not, then weāre done here.
Wrongful termination suit incoming.
I seem to recall a former VP who told someone to āgo fuck yourselfā on the floor of congress.
Then again, I also recall another VP calling the passage of the ACA āa big fucking dealā and he was speaking to the president (in the WH, I think?) at the time.
If the company has obscenity rules known in advance, so be it, but they need to be applied equally. Posting āfucking librard assholeā seems to be a trifecta of obscene but what the fuck do I know?
Basically, you cannot have ālewdā or āobsceneā things in your social media.
To the most lewd and obscene fake pres in U.S. history.