Crystal Dixon was recently fired from her job at the public University of Toledo. She was fired for writing a column for Toledo Free Press in which she made some distasteful and ignorant comments about homosexuals. (She also made comments about the benefits disparity at the University of Toledo, but this does not appear to have anything to do with her being fired.)
The university has said:
According to WTOL, OH, the university also claims that certain jobs at UT come with restrictions on what employees are allowed to express.
Now, this column that she wrote was not part of her job. She was writing on her own. After reading the letter, I cannot see how a person reading it could conclude she was speaking on behalf of the university. So, this is just a woman expressing an opinion.
If this was a private employer, I would have no problem with her being fired. I do, however, have a problem with the government selecting which views are appropriate for a person to be able to express (regardless of how distasteful I find those opinions).
What do you think? Should she have been fired? If there any legal experts, was this firing legal?
On the one hand, she sounds like a flaming nutbar. On the other hand, she’s entitled to her opinion, just like everyone else. On the other other hand, the WTOL article says her job was an HR administrator. If I was gay, and I knew my boss was that biased against people like me, I would feel I was in a hostile environment, even if she wasn’t speaking on behalf of UT. It’s a tough issue all around.
I’d have to come down on the side of UT. She spoke out in a public forum about an issue that could easily affect how she deals with those in her workplace on an everyday basis. In the university’s favor, if they don’t can her, they’re opening up another issue of creating a hostile work environment.
Federal government employees (including some state and local government employees) are restricted in their partisan political participation under the Hatch Act.
One of the newest is social media. While anyone can have a blog, a federal employee who creates and posts to their non-government personal blog may be subject to the Hatch Act in that one can post partisan comments on a blog, but cannot include a link to a partisan political web site, nor collect (solicit) for campaign contributions for partisan candidates.
But the Hatch Amendment does not restrict free speech rights. A person can still express his opinion. The Hatch Amendment would not restrict the actions this woman took.
I’ll be back later tomorrow with some analysis. Suffice it to say that: a) she’s considering legal options, and b) she doesn’t have an open and shut case.
Perhaps if she was employed in another capacity this might not have been such an issue, but since she works in HR, she will make decisions based on transparency and fairness.
She has just made public her views which are to the detriment of a particualr minority, yet at some point she will be involved with anything from discpilinary to welfare issues and managing attendance.
I would not be at all happy about such a person running a personal issue case, she has demonstrated in public a certain bias against one group, who knows what other biases she has.
It will also probably turn out that this is only one of a long running series of concerns, she seems rather good at self promotion, wonder who she stood on to get to her former position.
If she wrote an article that said Christians violated the natural order, were immoral and decadent, and quoted several “recovering” Christians as ammunition to attack Christian beliefs and demonize them, then yeah I’d see the case the same.
What a silly gotcha. If she reveals any significantly bias such that she can’t be trusted to handle her job impartially, then she’d be in the same place as she is now.
What evidence is there that she cannot be trusted in her job? No evidence has been revealed that she has improperly administrated any HR cases. At no point does she in any way say that she will base the decisions necessary for her job on her own personal opinions.
The evidence that she can’t be trusted is that she’s willing to admit in print that she’s a bigot. In this particular case, it’s not a very strong bigotry, being instead the standard mealy-mouthed “love the sinner” form of homophobia-lite. Of course she claims that she treats gay employees equally, but knowing her prejudices, can we trust her when she says that? In this particular case, I’m actually leaning towards “yes,” but I do think there’s a threshold past which one can legitimatly say that a person can’t be trusted in a position of authority over other workers on the basis of their prejudices. For example, if she’d written an article saying that gays all deserve to die from AIDS, I don’t think she can be trusted in an HR position, regardless of her protestations that she wouldn’t treat the filthy sinners any different from anyone else. Similarly, if it turned out she was a member of the highly anti-Semetic Nation of Islam, or were white, and had ties to the KKK, those would both be valid grounds for dismissing her from her position.
But, in this specific case, I think the firing was wrong. Her views are (unfortunetly) pretty mainstream, and (fortunetly) seem to stem more from well-intentioned ignorance than malice.
My point is that public employees may have conditions of employment that restrict their rights that do not apply in private employment. Has anyone looked the the university’s conditions of employment?
She had the right to free speech, and she exercised that right. There were no legal reprecussions for expressing speech, and nothing in the constitution protects you from the consequences of saying hateful things.
Does that even matter? Can’t the university hire and fire for any reason they want, as long as they aren’t descriminating based on race/gender/age etc.?
The question seems to be whether the letter she wrote was on a matter of public concern. Since she was responding to something that had already been printed in a public newspaper on a matter that is much discussed by the public, it appears to be a matter of public concern. I do not see knowing or reckless falsehoods or anything that causes a substantial interference her ability to do her job.