Google, Charlottesville, and the Need to Protect Private Employees’ Political Speech Chloe M
Brooklyn Law Review Volume 84 | Issue 1 Article 21 Fall 10-1-2018 Google, Charlottesville, and the Need to Protect Private Employees’ Political Speech Chloe M. Gordils Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, First Amendment Commons, Labor and Employment Law Commons, and the State and Local Government Law Commons Recommended Citation Chloe M. Gordils, Google, Charlottesville, and the Need to Protect Private Employees’ Political Speech, 84 Brook. L. Rev. (2018). Available at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol84/iss1/21 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Brooklyn Law Review by an authorized editor of BrooklynWorks. Google, Charlottesville, and the Need to Protect Private Employees’ Political Speech INTRODUCTION Consider that you are the owner of a popular hot dog eatery in Berkeley, California. One day in early August, after a long day of sausage sales, you return home and turn on the news, only to see the face of one of your employees participating in a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.1 The next day, a popular Twitter account releases a photo of your employee, mentioning your restaurant, and calling on you to terminate the employee. You find yourself in a tough position. On one hand, you are in charge of a private entity (the hot dog restaurant), with a reputation and legitimate business interests that could suffer due to your continued employment of a known neo-Nazi. On the other hand, you are a steadfast supporter of free speech, and have serious doubts about allowing a Twitter account to dictate your employee’s right to assert his or her sociopolitical views off the clock, while maintaining a job.
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