Not really: any employer has the right to stop an employee from misrepresenting his/her policy. A smart private business owner would do the same: a customer coming to deal with disability should not be put in a position of dealing with religion, politics, etc.
And just how long have you lived in this country?
Ever heard of the NYT? Boston Globe?
Ever heard of Ben and Jerry's?
I am a business owner. I am an employer. If you haven't figured out that secular utopian dreams result in mass executions, economic failure and relatively quick collapse, you need to bone up on the history of the 20th century.
Either you clean out ALL material of a personal, social, religious or political nature, or you clean out none of it. In every workplace, there is some of this stuff in almost every cubicle or office. But this guy was singled out, which is wrong.
I don't have a problem either way-- clean it all out, or leave it all alone. But, I suspect that the de-personalization involved in cleaning it all out, not to mention the kind of managerial attitude that would demonstrate, would make that a place where no one wanted to work, and no one worked very well. They know that, which is why they didn't choose that course.
Although federal employees have much more dramatic "on the job" free speech rights than any other category of workers in the country, state employees are not far behind.
You cannot apply private sector standards to this situation.
If management wants to "protect" the delicate sensibilities of clients visiting the site, they can set up a public access workstation however they wish. On the other hand, if this is the employee's ONLY place of work, and it's management bringing clients (not "customers" PULEEEZE) around to the employee's desk, seems to me it's management doing the offending, if any, and not the poor guy who's just sitting there grinding away through the drudgework his bosses have improperly designed.
I guess I pretty much agree with you there, but I'd go further, I'd like to see all the cubicle junk go. A lady in my department has a cubicle that's just brimming over with troll dolls, horse figurines and other crap. It's like walking around in someone's trailer.