Everyone has the right to free speech - but no one has the right to avoid consequences for that speech. In 2008, he spoke, via a $1,000 public donation, of his opinion to support Prop 8. It wasn't just some random thought - he had a very specific outcome in mind that he wanted to see enacted that would impact _other_ people's lives. He got the consequence he wanted - Prop 8 passed and same-sex marriage was outlawed. In 2014, Mozilla employed exercised that very same right to speak against his fitness to be CEO. The consequence of that was that he was forced to resign. He doesn't get to pick and choose which consequences he'll allow. Once he speaks, other people get to respond, and thats what they did.
> Everyone has the right to free speech - but no one has the right to avoid consequences for that speech
This is actually not true. For example, it would have been illegal for Mozilla to fire Eich for his donation. This is because political activity is considered protected in California (like gender, race, etc.), so firing someone for making a political statement or for donating to a political cause is illegal.
We will probably learn more about this defense as the Google/Damore case proceeds.
Hi, you are mistaken on many facts here. I'll start with this claim. No employees at the Mozilla Corporation demanded that I resign. Six Mozilla Foundation (the non-profit .org with arms-length management and separate board) tweeted that I should step down (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozil... which fails to note their employer was not the company to which I had been appointed CEO, although I was founder of both orgs). They never worked for me.
At the Mozilla Corporation? That was what @dagenix specified in the grandparent comment by "... his employees ...." Unless they deleted their tweets, let's see those twitter links.
A green handle of "communist_" does not inspire automatic belief that you truly had friends at Mozilla Corporation or know of any such tweets.
Again, if you mean the six Mozilla Foundation employees who tweeted against me as (poorly) reported by Ars Technica (see https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/mozil...), they were not "his employees". They worked for an entirely separate organization from the one I was running.
Back-story: Mozilla Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit set up in 2003 (I was founding board member, and a co-founder of mozilla.org in 1998 at the start). Mozilla Corporation is the for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation which exists at arms length to make taxable revenue from Firefox. The two orgs are loosely connected; the Mozilla Foundation is much smaller and all about getting and giving grants.
> Everyone has the right to free speech - but no one has the right to avoid consequences for that speech.
Incorrect. At least, it's incorrect as far as consequences levied by their employers. In the United States, government employees are protected by the First Amendment. E.G. a government department that fired employees for pro or anti gay marriage donations would mean that the government is privileging one political opinion over the other:
> the rationale now is that while government may deny employment, or any benefit for that matter, for any number of reasons, it may not deny employment or other benefits on a basis that infringes that person’s constitutionally protected interests. “For if the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited. This would allow the government to ‘produce a result which [it] could not command directly.’ . . . Such interference with constitutional rights is impermissible."
> In his case, his employees exercised their right to speak, said they thought he wasn't fit to be CEO, demanded his resignation, and he resigned.
This is not entirely correct, and is omitting a substantial part of the story. The company board (who are effectively Eich's bosses) told him to step down as CEO. The CEO doesn't have have a manager and so can't really be fired like a normal employee, but the board telling him to resign is functionally the same thing.
I wasn't saying that there aren't certain protections for speech - there are, and there should be. Its not like once you speak everyone in the room has the right to punch you in the face. What I'm saying, is that once you speak, there are some consequences you must face - one being that other people get to respond with their own speech. In his case, his employees exercised their right to speak, said they thought he wasn't fit to be CEO, demanded his resignation, and he resigned.
