Just curious
@jktrotter would you sign an employment agreement that baked in progressive values and restricted your off-hours speech? Just curious
— Chris Tolles (@tolles) July 8, 2014
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Chris, two questions:
1) What do you mean by “progressive values”?
2) Who “restricted” whose speech in this case?
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J.K. (& Sam) :
1) To be more clear, I'm asking whether you (either of you?) would sign an employment contract that explicitly included making racist or misogynistic speech outside of work part of the list of things where you could be termed for "cause". Or indeed had a section describing "prohibited speech" as part of the employment agreement.
More broadly, should restrictions on speech that have resulted in someone being fired be instantiates formally into employment agreements and if not, why not?
2) As clear as is a summer's sun there was no one whose speech was restricted here.
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You think being opposed to racism and misogyny is a progressive value?
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Are you saying being opposed to racism and misogyny *aren't* progressive values? What label do you want to ascribe firing someone for saying something racist? (And can we skip "common decency" or whatever the obvious hyperbole is as an answer...)
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Being opposed to racism is like being opposed to child abuse. It's a non-political value. A human value, you might say.
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(Dismissed your duplicate reply so this thread is consolidated.)
Your reply doesn’t make things clearer, or at least clearer to me. What does this have to do with Anthony Cumia? Nobody is arguing—as far as I can tell! I could be wrong!—to codify anything into law. Are you suggesting that labor law should have protected Cumia from being fired?
I don’t think restrictions on speech per se should be formally instantiated (inserted?) into employment agreements. (I don’t know what you mean by “prohibited speech,” either.) But the public didn’t write or alter—or is suggesting the alteration of—Cumia’s employment agreement.
If Cumia believes he was wrongly fired, and/or that his firing is in some way illegal, he has the right to file litigation (and you could make that argument). But it’s strange to suggest that an outlet which criticized a public figure’s speech should itself engage in some kind of soul-searching about the meaning and importance of free speech with regard to employment contracts.
I mean, you’re essentially trying to say that we’re acting in bad faith, right? Go ahead! But if your pet cause is the absolute right to spout racist and misogynist nonsense without enduring any criticism whatsoever—remember Pax Dickinson?—then you should make that argument, not the weird one you’re making.
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What is your definition of racism (or misogyny)?
Also, what mainstream political party or ideological movement says they do not oppose racism and misogyny?
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Pretty hyperbolic, Sam...
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(Thanks for removing the dupe)
I'm not trying to get into the specific situation regarding Cumia.
Nor I advocating any changes to laws, as there's nothing illegal about offensive speech (so far) nor firing an at will employee. There may be a civil suit here, but whatever.
But if you are ok for people getting fired for stuff they say outside of their work why not just build in those proscriptions into a speech covenant?
And why am I not attacking you for acting in bad faith? Well, it's more nuanced than that. You didn't call anyone's employer nor openly lobby for their dismissal (anywhere in any of these) so a lot of this is what I'm inferring about what you're implying.
So, was just a thought exercise on a culture of free speech vs. it being fashionable to fire people for conduct that's not explicitly spelled out. Obviously a public media figure will end up with greater implicit risk for getting fired over what they say, but when it trickles down that's another story. Just exploring what you think.
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But if you are ok for people getting fired for stuff they say outside of their work why not just build in those proscriptions into a speech covenant?
OK. Is the system we have not working well enough? Why would we need “speech covenants”?
I am not entirely sure why one would prefer debating a purely hypothetical scenario—involving purely hypothetical restrictions on speech—when one has a very real scenario to assess, unless one doesn’t want to engage with the specifics of that actual scenario.
And come on: You’re definitely tying this to Cumia.
The reality you might want to wrestle with here is that Cumia openly stated that black people are sub-human. That you’re attempting to minimize criticism of Cumia as the bad-faith output of “progressive values”—rather than just basic human decency—is still kind of incredible, given your position in technology and media.
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Is there anyone, ever, who says that they are racist? Part of this is that the construct of racism and misogyny is that of blasphemy.
There are some pretty egregious things people say, and there are others which have gotten people fired which seem a lot less clear cut.
And God help you if you get sucked into a discussion defending a culture of free speech. It's like being in Pakistan and defending an apostate. (But without the being killed part and all) :)
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You seem to consider racism as something akin to being mean or insensitive, a word very offended people use when they would like to demonstrate that they’re very offended. Your comparison to “blasphemy” kind of gives this away.
Racism is a political-cultural-economic system of domination. And the racism we’re talking about here is more precisely described as white supremacy. It is not about being mean. It is not about being insensitive.
So when someone like Cumia enacts a belief system in which white people are provided a pan-national license to master and subjugate black people, without consequence or judgement, you might want to discuss that fact, rather than retreading your bizarre obsession with forcing terrible people’s critics to answer whether they would comply with some kind of speech code.
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Nice putting words in my mouth :)
My tweet wasn't a reaction to Cumia nor even the Gawker article on Cumia, but rather of your glee at those people annoyed at Gawker on *Reddit* (which castigated you for trying to get people fired, more generally).
Now my turn :)
The current fashion *you* may want to reflect on here is that you, a writer at Gawker and defender, presumably, of the faith hesitate to actually suggest that we proscribe speech and yet you are accusing me of being incredibly without basic human decency for politely asking you whether we should bake this "human decency" in explicitly.
Smells a lot like dogma and religion.
OK. I don’t think this is going anywhere. You’re asking me whether I would agree with a speech code that you yourself would not agree with, because of “the faith.” And we don’t have a shared understanding of racism. These are barriers.
Anyway, we’ve both made our points. Thank you for stopping by, though.
Sure. Anytime :)
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This whole thread was one interesting read. What made you decide against law school even though you probably have the self-awareness to know you'd do great at it? Just curious.
Oh, LORD no.
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Lol. No to which part though? Come on, you totally took that guy down. You figured out how to deconstruct his shitty arguments on the fly.
Just saw this! The law school part.
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I don't understand the question.
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"off-hours speech"
Didn't the guy rant about this on his show, thus bringing in his own personal business to his place of work, of his own volition?
My impression of the whole situation was that somebody needed to be told to drop the shovel and stop digging the hole in which he stood.
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not trying to tie this to the specific incident. More broadly, there have been several people who have lost their jobs as a result of things they've said outside of work. Just wondering if an employment clause that proscribed speech would be received.
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Media companies typically have such clauses, for purposes of ensuring proper representation of their company/brand. The Duck Dynasty guy is a good example, because the channel that ran his show catered to a large variety of audiences, and some of them took issue with his remarks as being representative of the network's views.
Outside of that, I'm sure many companies are evolving in the sense that more and more of them are taking the time to lay down rules regarding the use of social media, especially since social media is very much the opposite of "private," unless that setting is actually utilized and the audience heavily screened against potential leaks. People seem to not realize that using something like Twitter isn't sitting at a table, sharing with your friends; it's standing in the street with cameras on you, bullhorn in hand, for all to see and hear who wish to pay any attention.
Edit: Also a good example of how social media can blow up the mundane, things that would never even rate a joke: The dude who just kickstarted a potato salad and pulled in thousands from backers. Take the internet out of the equation and you have nothing there at all, except what would have been a private joke among friends that no one else would likely have ever known about. Add the internet, and now he's on a morning talk show to discuss how he managed to get a ridiculous amount of money for what was originally just a joke of a tentative lunch plan
fair points - was looking as this trickles down to people who post something stupid on Facebook who are not media personalities.
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You mean an agreement that prohibits me from saying racist and misogynistic shit on Twitter? Sure.
