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Comment by sointeresting | Hacker News Reader

The 1st amendment doesn't protect your job, never has.

This is exactly right. People get fired over social media posts all of the time. The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employers if they see fit though.

Do you mean ‘The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employees if they see fit’.

Sorry, I’m not American so have little idea how it works.

No, I meant what I said.

I also did not agree against the legality of being fired for a social media post. It's been happening since social media first existed.

You also can't boycott an employee. I really don't know what point you are trying to make here.

I’m not trying to make a point. I was trying to understand if it’s legal to sack someone in the US if you don’t like their views and I didn’t read your comment carefully enough.

No, you can't fire someone for their views. That's 100% illegal, but given the track record of our current Supreme Court, I don't see that being the case for long.

Yes, in general a private employer can legally fire an employee for their political views. There are exceptions in some states, including California, New York, Colorado, North Dakota, that have protections for firing by political affiliation or activities, but that's the exception to the rule. Another exception applies to any public employee, since the first amendment applies to their employer.

The default employment rule is at-will, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited. Political affiliation is not a federally protected category.

I guess I've been living in a free state for so long that I overlooked this fact.

> The default employment rule is at-will employment, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited.

Even then, in practice they can fire people for prohibited reasons, as long as it can't be proven that those reasons were used. Which in practice could be very difficult.

If you work for the government, shouldn't it?

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