Fordham Law Review Volume 89 Issue 4 Article 17 2020 The Harms of Racist Online Hate Speech in the Post-COVID Working World: Expanding Employee Protections Tatiana Hyman Fordham University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Tatiana Hyman, The Harms of Racist Online Hate Speech in the Post-COVID Working World: Expanding Employee Protections, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 1553 (2021). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol89/iss4/17 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Law Review by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE HARMS OF RACIST ONLINE HATE SPEECH IN THE POST-COVID WORKING WORLD: EXPANDING EMPLOYEE PROTECTIONS Tatiana Hyman* In one year, the COVID-19 pandemic and egregious incidents of racial violence have created significant shifts in the United States’s workplace culture and social climate. Many employers are transitioning employees to long-term or permanent remote work, and conversations about racial justice are more pervasive and divisive, especially on social media. With people spending more time at home and on the internet, hate speech has increased and inspired global conversations about curtailing its harmful effects. Unlike many other countries, the United States does not penalize hate speech. Nevertheless, its harmful effects have reached the workplace, and employers have fired employees who posted offensive speech on their personal social media pages.