Image Credit: https://www.pikist.com/free-photo-sdkka As an employment lawyer and blogger, I’ve seen and heard a lot. But, I’m having a tough time wrapping my head around this one. How could this even happen? Yesterday, a college sued its former baseball coach in federal court. The reason the case is in federal…
Image Credit: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net License: CC0 Public Domain I’ve said many times before on this blog that employees always have the right to freedom of speech — even on social media. But, words have consequences. And no law guarantees the right to continued employment. But, there are limited exceptions to that…
Phil Whitehouse//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js Anti-discrimination law focuses on the impact that bad acts have on victims, not on whether the actor intended the consequences of his actions. That’s why many employment lawyers caution employer-clients against second chances for employees that do things that others perceive as discriminatory. Just ask Nick Cannon. Second…
Image by Thomas Ulrich from Pixabay Both a Harvard graduate and a police detective who supported the recent Black Lives Matter protests appear to be finding out the hard way that posting violent threats on social media, even if in jest, can end up costing a job. “The next person…
Image credit: J_avant81 on Instagram NBC10 Philadelphia reports here that a corrections officer in New Jersey mocked George Floyd’s death as protesters marched past. Jason Avant, a former wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, shared a video of it on Instagram (NSFW). Although there is political propaganda in the video,…
LA Galaxy / CC BY-SA Ok, there is one more social-media related termination that we need to discuss. The virtual ink had barely dried on last Friday’s post about “13 people who were fired for ignorant COVID-19 and protest social media posts” when BOOM! TMZ.com reported here that a professional…
National Archives at College Park / Public domain I don’t usually take pleasure in the misfortune of others. At least not to their face. But over the past week or so I’ve been bombarded with Google alerts about ignorant people who seem not to appreciate the difference between freedom of…
Image by Andrey_Lesya from Pixabay Amazingly, this piece of cloth creates so much civil unrest right now. But, this isn’t a blog post about whether individuals should have to wear face masks in public, at work, or other local businesses. It’s been a while since I’ve done a social media…
Ibrahim.ID / CC BY-SA Obviously, probably, and definitely. But, a recent survey didn’t cover any of these examples. Survey methodology Instead, researchers at Penn State University “recruited 436 hiring managers from a variety of organizations, 61% of whom were employed in the hospitality industry and the remainder in industries ranging…
TikTok [Public domain]When it comes to employees getting fired for their social media use, the Mount Rushmore of platforms claiming these victims is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. But, let’s talk a little bit about TikTok. But, before I do that and apropos of the theme of this post, yo,…