> Freedom of Speech != Speech without Consequences. I can say what I want at work but I can get fired for that speech.
You should only be fired if that speech directly interferes with the performance of that job, e.g., if the cashier says offensive thing to the customers or an employee tries to convince their coworkers to shirk their duties. Political opinions that are separate from an employee's job that the employee expresses on their own time should not be punished.
Free speech is about cordoning off a realm of ideas that is free from reprisals in meat space. If you don't understand why this is important, and applies to individuals contemplating economic reprisals just as much as to government incarceration, you should read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mills, the classic canonical defense of this. It's only 100 pages and available free.
The question of whether businesses should refrain from firing employee with unpopular opinions because the businesses fear anti-free-speech punishment from their customers (e.g., a boycott of a grocery store because the shift manager is pro-choice) is complicated, but it is very similar to the sorts of moral trade-offs made in the personal sphere all the time: if a group of students are being mean to Alice for no good reason and they will shun me if I stay friends with her, am I morally bound to stay friends with her? Yes, there is a presumption that I should not punish Alice unjustly, but there is also a limit on the size of negative consequences I am morally bound to endure on behalf of Alice. Likewise, businesses generally ought to refrain from firing employees who tweet unpopular opinions for free speech reasons, but it is unreasonable to expect businesses to take unlimited economic losses on behalf of such employees due to anti-free-speech customers.
And who gets to define "racism"? If I defend my company's policy of only accepting resumes from coding boot camp graduates if they're a woman, Black, or Latin is that racist or sexist? How about if I criticize these policies? I know plenty of people that would call the former racist and also a good number of people that would say the same of the latter.
The US government gets to define racism, if legal requirements to employ a precisely calibrated ratio of whites, women, blacks, and latinos are any guide. This is America, after all, and that’s what freedom means.
You should only be fired if that speech directly interferes with the performance of that job, e.g., if the cashier says offensive thing to the customers or an employee tries to convince their coworkers to shirk their duties. Political opinions that are separate from an employee's job that the employee expresses on their own time should not be punished.
Free speech is about cordoning off a realm of ideas that is free from reprisals in meat space. If you don't understand why this is important, and applies to individuals contemplating economic reprisals just as much as to government incarceration, you should read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mills, the classic canonical defense of this. It's only 100 pages and available free.
https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/mill/liber...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty
The question of whether businesses should refrain from firing employee with unpopular opinions because the businesses fear anti-free-speech punishment from their customers (e.g., a boycott of a grocery store because the shift manager is pro-choice) is complicated, but it is very similar to the sorts of moral trade-offs made in the personal sphere all the time: if a group of students are being mean to Alice for no good reason and they will shun me if I stay friends with her, am I morally bound to stay friends with her? Yes, there is a presumption that I should not punish Alice unjustly, but there is also a limit on the size of negative consequences I am morally bound to endure on behalf of Alice. Likewise, businesses generally ought to refrain from firing employees who tweet unpopular opinions for free speech reasons, but it is unreasonable to expect businesses to take unlimited economic losses on behalf of such employees due to anti-free-speech customers.