Juan Williams fired

[Don]

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.

 

[Steven2006]

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.

 

[Tom Bryant]

So you are suggesting that someone that works at the Presidents pleasure does not have protection under the constitution?

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.

 

[Tom Bryant]

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.

 

[freeatlast]

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.

 

[rbell]

Excerpts from Williams' account:

This self-reverential attitude was on display several years ago when NPR asked me to help them get an interview with President George W. Bush. I have longstanding relationships with some of the key players in his White House due to my years as a political writer at The Washington Post. When I got the interview some in management expressed anger that in the course of the interview I said to the president that Americans pray for him but don’t understand some of his actions. They said it was wrong to say Americans pray for him.

And now they have used an honest statement of feeling as the basis for a charge of bigotry to create a basis for firing me. Well, now that I no longer work for NPR let me give you my opinion. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.

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.

 

[rbell]

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.

 

[freeatlast]

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.

 

[Aaron]

NPR fired Juan Wlliams for remarks made on FOX News.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737


HankD

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

 

[HankD]

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.

Hi freeatlast,

this is a special case, besides "at will" empoyment is nationwide especially for W-2 limited benefits employee Contractors.

I have been an at will employee for most of my career as a software architect/engineer.

The big difference is that NPR is partially funded by taxpayer money and has been given a public trust which they violated in the eyes of most people by their unfair and one-sided treatment of Juan Williams.

Some of their commentators have made public statements far worse than Juan's honest confession of his feelings.

But their biggest booboo was a lack of wisdom.

The entire nation was alerted to Juan's demise because Juan is/was a favorite on FOX news which blabbed it to the entire world.

Duh?

Had they waited a few months they could have just not renewed his contract.

But apparently (underline apparently) they wanted to send a message of itimidation to all liberals who dare to refuse to drink the far-left kool-aid.

It obviously backfired on them because of the hew and cry of those who hug their Bibles and guns to tightly (and quite a few who don't).

HankD