# Assistant football coach fired over tweet sues to get his job back **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 29, 2021, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assistant-football-coach-fired-over-tweet-sues-to-get-his-job-back/941070 "2021-04-29T21:40:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assistant-football-coach-fired-over-tweet-sues-to-get-his-job-back/941070/41 "2021-05-01T00:41:29Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Ordinarily I’d be on the side of the coach, but he knew he’d stepped over the line when he deleted the post 30 minutes after he put it up. He got immediate blow-back from former players. This tweet will interfere with Tennessee recruitment efforts. That alone is reason to fire his ass. The university just needs to take the position that he was fired for being an asshole, not for “unpopular opinions.” So if I get drunk and post something stupid on Twitter my best course of action is to keep it up, roll with it and fight harder, lest my taking it down be seen as an admission of guilt. I think that poorly incentivizes things. With government regulated speech, there must be a sharper line than “hurts recruitment efforts” because that argument could be used for anything. If he posted “Vote Biden” could the university say that as a deep red state he was hurting recruitment by posting that? As far as being an asshole v. unpopular opinions, when you say someone is an asshole in this context, you are saying they are an asshole simply because they hold unpopular opinions. I said I support the power of the school to fire him for what he said, but this and the other thread are excellent examples of how difficult it is to police the government when it comes to speech. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2021, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assistant-football-coach-fired-over-tweet-sues-to-get-his-job-back/941070/42 "2021-05-01T00:49:30Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Would his relationship with his players (many black) and co-workers have made his work place even remotely tolerable? Same for the “Fuck Cheer” girl. What sort of reception would she have gotten from her teammates and how long before she decided to switch her interests to the chess club? But if we assume that each had a First Amendment right to say what they did and keep their positions, wouldn’t the government organization have an obligation to keep their workplace/school organization tolerable? If the cheer girl showed up for practice and found her street clothes shredded, could she sue the school claiming that it didn’t do enough to find the culprits or if it did that the punishment was insufficient? I think it has the perverse effect of then forcing the school to make the players be EXTRA respectful to the coach or the cheer teammate simply because of the comments. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2021, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assistant-football-coach-fired-over-tweet-sues-to-get-his-job-back/941070/43 "2021-05-03T12:34:16Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > No, I just think you are wrong. People don’t quit their jobs out of shame, they quit because they are under pressure, sometimes even by their usual allies. Agree with this. With one small caveat. There are borderline situations where higher management is not in fact gunning for the person who goofed; there is no “Resign quietly before we fire you publicly.” pressure. Instead, the message is “You’ve had your last promotion. If you’re ambition-free, you can serve out your years in a series of increasingly backwater jobs here. Or, if you still think you have a career ahead of you, you’ll have _much_ better luck elsewhere.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assistant-football-coach-fired-over-tweet-sues-to-get-his-job-back/941070/44 "2021-05-03T12:46:04Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I said I support the power of the school to fire him for what he said, but this and the other thread are excellent examples of how difficult it is to police the government when it comes to speech. ISTM the real issue here is that the university may well be a government-owned entity, but it isn’t executing a fundamentally governmental function. And this blurs the lines between “Management says your public persona is a liability and they want to remove you.” and “The government says your public persona is a liability and they want to remove you.” My Fortune 100 employer would have no compunction about removing that guy for embarrassing the corporation. IMO the mere fact the eventual “shareholder(s)” that top management answers to is the state legislature rather than Wall Street shouldn’t really alter that. For sure there should be strong protections for whistle-blowing, etc. But anyone with any public exposure who works for anyone understands (or should) that they need to conform their public behavior to their employer’s desires. Working in a non-governing role for a wholly- (or partly-?) government owned entity should not be a get-out-of-jail-free card for harming your employer through ill-considered speech. As a separate matter … As I’ve said elsewhere, if I was the King of TwitFace, there would be no delete feature. You posted it, you own it for eternity. As Hemingway put it so pithily: > Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. It’ll teach you to keep your mouth shut. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assistant-football-coach-fired-over-tweet-sues-to-get-his-job-back/941070.md?page=2)