I agree. What I was referring to was his free speech rights. Sure he put his company in a bad light. He was a jerk to lay into that girl who incidentally conducted herself with grace. He showed poor judgement. He took his venting out on the wrong person. I was just wondering wasn’t he allowed to express his free speech rights? But then, words do have consequences and he found out the hard way that his did. I’m glad he got fired. He had no right to vent to that girl. What if anything could she have done? Nothing. He should have gone to corporate and done that rant at their headquarters and not at some bottom employee.
He was free to speak. The government will not punish him (congress shall make no law..constitutional thing).
Being an ass, though, can get you fired.
/johnny
I'm get tired of having to explain this. "Free Speach" provides protection against the GOVERNMENT from punishing free speach. It does not apply to a private enterprise, who can fire anyone for saying something they don't like unless their employment contract says otherwise. (The university - as a state actor - would have been bound by the First, except he didn't work there since May 2012. Also, even they can fire someone for being a jerk aka embarassing the university if the employment agreement includes suitable provisions.)
Because, as has been noted elsewhere, the First Amendment applies only to government action. There is no right to free speech on private property and there is no right to free speech that is injurious to an individual's private employer. That employer may choose to tolerate said speech but is under no legal obligation to do so.
Believe it or not, even the federal government fires employees for electioneering in the workplace or via government equipment or gov’t vehicles. Those are violations of the Hatch Act. (Having a political Bumper sticker on your personal car in the Govt parking lot is OK). I’m not suggesting that the Democrats don’t violate the Hatch Act on a daily basis, but if some Kool-Aid drinker uses his govt computer to spam his co-workers with “Re-elect Obama” email, and it gets reported, that worker is going to get fired.