I think people often expect 'free speech' in situations where I wouldn't. Like a collaborative working environment where you are all professionals trying to get work done. There is a subset of speech (so no longer 'free') that is appropriate for working professionally with a group, especially a group from widely diverse backgrounds. The exact boundaries change over time and between environments, but the idea of employers setting a baseline set of elections expectations inherently limits speech. Google supports speech within limits, and a person who gets that could probably have navigated the politics of talking about the legitimate issues in the memo without crossing that line. Working together in companies is weird. Codes of Conduct attempt to standardize expectations so that work can get done. Work is a special place.
It is an utopia to pretend that the workplace should be opinion-free. Especially since the workplace on purpose tries to blur the lines between personal and professional lives: dorms on campus, cafeteria, malls and dry-cleaning amenities on campus.
If that's the direction business are going towards to then it is normal to accept that the employee comes with opinions attached.
What rights? The guarantee that the government will not interfere with your free speech? This has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment.
> It's a lie to say Google's culture supports free speech when the cost of that speech is compliance with the tyranny of a Code of Conduct.
The memo made it clear that diversity of opinion is welcome right up to the point where it violates the CoC, but not beyond that point - if you violate the CoC - you can and will get fired. It even listed which parts of the memo would have been ok.
I've never heard of a company that places some sort of altruist dedication to free speech as a higher priority than their internal code of conduct. Google's position on this is industry standard, protects Google from lawsuits, and protects Google employees from harassment. How is that bad?