Juan Williams fired

I understand what you're telling me: legally speaking, I'm wrong.

However, I personally don't believe that although it's legal, it's correct.

 

I think employers should have the discretion to fire someone if they so chose. That said I think in this case, in firing Juan Williams they were wrong and it was politically motivated. Williams may very well have enough cause for a wrongful termination case. I heard he is the only black reporter that NPR employed. If he could prove that other reporters of theirs have spoken out in similar fashion and didn't get fired, but he did, it could appear that the reason was because of his race. Even though I am sure it was political, in their zeal to fire him NPR may have stepped in it because he is black. They better hope that they have been consistent with all their white reporters.

 

An employee of the President working for the administration (any administration) knows he can be let go if he fails to parrot the position of the President. By speaking out he is effectively resigning. I doubt Juan Williams thought that if he expressed his opinion he was resigning from NPR. He probably thought that expressing opinions was his job.

btw, CTB is Crab Town Boy who is always handing out homework assignments.

 

Just saw this

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/21/raw-data-npr-internal-memo-juan-williams/

They say they have spoken with Williams previously to this and he had refused to obey. But they do wish the timing had been better than during fund raising week. :tongue3:

I also understand that Fox news has expanded his role there and given him a nice pay bump.

 

The company had the right to do this in my opinion. Any company that has an employee or employees who they feel brings discredit to their standards should be free to dismiss that employee. The guidelines should be clear, but beyond that I feel they had the right to fire him. Sometimes we get a little too fond of the "our rights" claims and forget about the other guys rights.

 

Excerpts from Williams' account:

I think we're worried about the wrong issue. The firing of Williams would be a non-issue if NPR did not receive government funds.

Why do my tax dollars go to support a patently leftist radical organization, who routinely promote values with which I disagree?

I've written my congressmen and asked them to go about de-funding these bunch of intolerant, radical, bra-burning, values-hating anarchists. (That's "NPR" explained).

And come on--we all know that if we quit giving these yahoos our tax dollars, outside of 'Curious George' and 'Sesame Street,' they probably wouldn't last ten minutes in the open marketplace.

 

In fairness, we must point out that left-wing statements are not punished by NPR.

In 1995, NPR legal affairs correspondent and rabit leftist Nina Totenberg famously suggested justice would be served if (then-Senator) Jesse Helms and his grandchildren contracted AIDS. (SOURCE)

She's still employed by NPR.

 

If some think that this man's firing is extreme then they better stay out of Texas. Texas is an at-will employment state. With regard to employees, this is a very tough standard. At-will employment means that absent a contract or civil rights exception, the employer may fire the employee at any time, with or without cause. For instance, an employer can come into the office one morning and fire an employee because he or she does not like the color of the employee’s shirt. This is legal in the State of Texas. For this reason, despite popular misconception, there is generally no claim or cause of action for wrongful termination or wrongful discharge. There are, however, a few exceptions and these exceptions are very important. An employer's right to terminate an at-will employee is limited by contract, by public policy concerns, by federal and state civil right statutes, and by some tort theories.

 

Good. It's high time that those who promoted political correctness became its victims.