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Why not sue Rokita for slander?
Good. Freedom of Speech is a constitutional right. It was a private post, on her private page. Shame on Ball State. Shame on Rokita. Shame on Indiana. Those who celebrate this should be mindful that it will only be a matter of time before they try to police our pulpits and religious freedoms too. This slippery slope will lead us all into the abyss of government control and tyranny.
Well said.
+1
Sounds like all these hilarious IBJ bobbleheads–the same ones saying “a business has the right to hire and fire employees who might hurt the brand” — are all of a sudden pretending they gave two rats’ patooties about the first amendment.
You set the precedent for this, lefties. Since you have indicated that you believe free speech should get a bullet to the neck, the retaliation is from the party you seek to murder for their free speech.
Keep escalating for the CW you clearly want.
Yes, liberals desire a Civil War. My social media feed is just packed with hundreds of people posing with personal armories and their Kamala hats, ready to go to battle.
Lauren doesn’t understand the difference between a private business and a public university and how they have different duties to follow the conversation and it’s not worth teaching her about because she doesn’t care to learn.
If it was private, how did it get all over the Internet?
Correct
Freedom of speech doesn’t come with freedom on consequences.
When the employer is a state institution, the First Amendment does add additional constraints on what the public employer can do in response to First Amendment protected speech, especially when made outside of and unrelated to the employee’s work.
Also, setting aside the legal argument, nothing in her post “celebrated” or endorsed Kirk’s murder. He was a divisive *public* figure, by *his* choice who made many public political statements that reasonable individuals may disagree with and have a right to comment on.
This move by the Trump administration and its state and private proxies to ghoulishly exploit his murder to stifle debate and stamp down resistance to its policies is the real issue here.
I’ve been amazed the number of people who thought highly of Charlie Kirk that … when presented with far more controversial comments said by Kirk, claimed he’d never said such things … even when presented with the clear video evidence from his own video feeds!
There’s something there about social media and a lack of common sourcing that is making us all worse off.
Hi Joe! Are these the same quotes you cited a few days ago from Snopes– a “fact checking” resource that somehow manages to reaffirm Democrat pieties 100% of the time?
Even if the claims being made were true about statements from a normie like Charlie Kirk (always dubious when coming from the gamut of legacy sources like Snopes or Reuters or NPR), he was comparatively milquetoast and frankly a bit too churchy for my taste but generally rhetorically superior to the ideologues he challenged (an admittedly low bar). And he never ever engaged in violence. With him murdered, his fans aren’t going to go running to Rachel Maddow or David Pakman; they’re far more likely to turn to someone like Nick Fuentes, with far spicier views who tussled with Kirk routinely (always rhetorically–the loonies tried to assassinate Fuentes as well). The fact remains that even a sizable portion of Democrats would have agreed with his positions as recently as 2010. Much of what his platform was in line with the Obama/Clinton debates of 2008. But then, the same could be said with the orange national socialist in the White House.
What is hateful rhetoric? I mean, your team is scrambling to defend Jimmy Kimmel, a self-identified comedian who they never watched, even when he believed non-COVID vaccinated people should be denied all medical treatment. Friendly reminder that Kimmel was mocking Tucker Carlson for getting ousted a couple years ago–another one who was still spicy for Fox News (the legacy media source that pretends it isn’t). That was a serious ratings hit for Fox, so there’s less credible claim to it being “a sensible business decision” except that Murdoch and the Zio-borgs of Sinclair media were concerned that Tucker was leading lots of conservatives away from their blind blue-and-white flag waving.
And, as of 30 minutes ago, Disney has put him back on the air so he can return to losing them $40M a year. Quite the Pyrrhic victory!
Scratch that: I predict Kimmel will get a significant ratings boost when he returns to his lucrative late-night perch…for about three weeks, until everyone realizes how boring he is. The one thing Kimmel decidedly WON’T get is a bullet to the neck.
Lauren, go ahead and refute any of those video clips from Charlie Kirk’s own videos … as opposed to being the type that blames the source, not the substance. Maybe Republicans just … have a loose relationship with reality and facts.
Charlie Kirk’s platform was simple … and the same as the entire Republican movement has devolved to. Fire people up on social issues and keep them occupied with that so that the billionaires funding the GOP can pass laws to keep more of their money and take from the rank and file GOP voters. Roll back everything since the FDR administration… Medicare, Social Security, all of it. Make it 1927 again. Give the ‘Christians’ who’ve sold out their faith some political power to enforce their beliefs on others since they lost their moral authority via their own actions.
You can keep on repeating that … that’s the same as the late 2000’s Democratic platform, but good luck laying out a case proving that. The floor is yours. Remember, one link per post.
It does when your employer is a government entity
You have freedom of speech and companies have the freedom to fire you for conduct unbecoming of their professional standards. You are an embarrassment to the university and a dumbass for posting such inflammatory remarks on a social media platform.
Except – that is not how it works when you work for a public institution…. You cannot just fire state employees because you disagree with what they said…
Should be an interesting lawsuit that winds up at the federal level IMO
What was inflammatory about her remarks?
It was a private post. Until Rokita made it public.
A clause in the statue allows for termination of a state employee if their comments cause a “distraction” for the institution. BSU believe they did and gave examples.
A clause in an employment agreement of a public institution does not override the First Amendment limitations placed on the public entity.
Unlike a private employer, a public employer has limits placed on it by the First Amendment when terminating or reprimanding an employee for legally protected free speech made outside of work and not said on behalf of the employer. This does not mean it can never reprimand an employee, but it *does* mean as public entity, its actions are held to a much stricter standard of scrutiny.
BSU now has quite the legal battle to deal with, and the taxpayers (as in all of us fine folks who pay taxes) will be footing the bill.
Truth be told, the employee’s comments would not have become a distraction had the university not chosen to fire her. Now it is a huge distraction, a self-inflected reputational black eye for an otherwise fine institution, and a potentially costly legal battle. They could have just let it quietly pass, and it would have.
Rokita is the one who made it a distraction
Boy, these liberals sure hate cancel culture now when it affects them but not when they dished it out in 2020…do as I say, not as I do. Maybe this will help them understand how stupid cancel culture is and was!
It does not necessarily have anything to do with “cancel culture,” so much as it has everything to do with the First Amendment.
Ball State University is not a private employer, which means its ability to punish its employees for legally protected speech made outside of the workplace is much more constrained than the ability of private employer to take similar actions.
If she worked for a private employer and had been fired, while I may have disagreed with the employer’s actions, the employer would generally have been within their rights to terminate her. Especially considering that most private employees are “at-will” and can be fired for any reason (except for very limited anti-discrimination protections) or *no* reason at all.
But, in this case, whether you are a “liberal” or a “conservative,” the First Amendment still applies.
Difference between private and public employer and what can be done. understand the constitution
Cee/Christopher…So when teachers were getting cancelled/fired for misgendering students back in 2020-2022…last I checked, most schools are public, not private. Understand common sense. Also, the First Amendment didn’t seem to apply during the height of cancel culture but it does now?! Interesting take.
The WOKE right has risen. Is Charlie Kirk Trump’s burning Reichstag?
The Right loves Cancel Culture now
Wow. The hate from the right and the left continues to ramp up, as fully shown in the above posts. Pretty disgusting in my personal opinion (if I am allowed to say that). I absolutely DO NOT think that the Ball State employee should have been terminated for her comments. She had the right to freely express her opinions, no matter if some groups of people were “offended” by them. That said, Kirk had the right to express his opinions. Free speech should belong to everyone.
Cancel culture sucks from both sides. People need to reduce the bravado and come back to the United States of America….and get out of “their’ America….
This isn’t “cancel culture.” That was always a group of individuals expressing their distaste through speech through boycotts and pressuring PRIVATE employers to hold their employees accountable. This is the GOVERNMENT suppressing speech. The two are in no way the same and one is clearly more detrimental to all of our freedoms.